Clash of the Elements Part 4: Messenger from Nega
by mewmaster93
Summary: With the events of his training behind him, Riku now travels forth to the world of Sonic the Hedgehog and friends. But now that Eggman has returned from the aftermath of Sonic Generations he has whipped up a scheme that will surely test the limits of the blue hedgehog's capabilities. The time has come for the Elemental Overlord's training to be put to good use, or all will be lost.
1. Chapter 1

_You've probably heard of this guy a ton of times before, right? Blue fur, spiky backside, red shoes and a noticeable attitude are his most defining features, and even though he rarely stops in one town everyone speaks his name. He's Sonic the Hedgehog, the fastest thing alive. _

_But what is the hedgehog's deal? Why does he run about non-stop without a care in the world? Nobody can actually answer that. For you see, Sonic isn't exactly very talkative about his past. He very, VERY rarely looks back and is always moving forward. Even his closest friend knows nothing about his past. The earliest people remember Sonic being around was when the brilliant scientist Dr. Ivo Robotnik suddenly chose to turn against humanity and try to take over the world with machines powered by tiny living creatures._

_On that day, Sonic the Hedgehog stopped him all by himself using nothing more than his speed and quick wits when even the military failed to stop Robotnik. If it was just that one instance of him saving the day, people would have just passed Sonic off as a one-time deal and forgotten him not long afterwards. But Robotnik tried time and time again to take over the world, and each time Sonic humiliated him completely. _

_However, despite assumedly being a solo-act for most of his life, Sonic was soon followed by a young two-tailed fox name Miles "Tails" Prower, and though the blue hedgehog found the kid to be a bit of a nuisance at first he didn't do anything to shoo him off and let him eventually prove his worth as a sidekick. Tails was only the first of Sonic's many friends, but no matter how much time passed the yellow fox would always be his closest one. In fact, you could say at this point those two are like brothers._

_Robotnik was foiled for the first time by the duo of Sonic and Tails, but this time around Sonic needed to use the power of the strange and mystical seven Chaos Emeralds to get the job done. Robotnik's orbital space station, the Death Egg, was gravely damaged by Sonic in a climatic final battle, but not enough for it to be fully destroyed. The large station began to slowly descend towards Earth, but instead of giving up on the project Robotnik instead chose to find another mean's of powering it._

_Looking towards the origin place of the Chaos Emeralds, Angel Island, caused Robotnik to meet its guardian, a red echidna by the name of Knuckles. Tricking Knuckles into believing that Sonic had stolen the Chaos Emeralds, Robotnik slowly scoured the island in search of the controller of the seven Chaos Emeralds, the Master Emerald, to assist him in re-powering the falling Death Egg. Meanwhile, Knuckles came to blows with Sonic and Tails, who happened upon Angel Island one fateful day._

_Knuckles stole back his Chaos Emeralds and constantly got in the two heroes' way. Eventually coming to blows in the Hidden Palace, Knuckles came to realize that Robotnik had tricked him, and after aiding Sonic in reaching the now ascending Death Egg Knuckles made sure to deal with Sonic's latest robotic doppelganger Mecha Sonic along with the Egg-Robo, a capsule shaped mechanical copy of Robotnik himself. _

_Sonic's fight against Robotnik extended to the very recesses of space itself, where Robotnik attempted to escape with the Master Emerald in one last creation as the Death Egg detonated behind them. Fighting through a meteor field, Sonic subconsciously ended up relying on the Master Emerald's power to boost the strength of the Chaos Emeralds into Super Emeralds, which gave him a "Hyper" form and gave him just enough speed to stop Eggman and take back the Master Emerald for Knuckles._

_Though Knuckles hated to admit it, he was thankful to Sonic for bringing back the Master Emerald. He even let Sonic keep the Chaos Emeralds as a reward, only for the blue hedgehog to nervously admit that when he descended through the atmosphere the emeralds jettisoned around the world. The red echidna groaned, but figured that was for the best. Sonic and Tails departed the now rising Angel Island, and Knuckles bid them farewell._

_On that day, unknowingly, Sonic had made yet another friend. Oh? You are saying I forgot someone before Knuckles? Actually, no I didn't. Before Tails and Knuckles, Sonic had actually stopped Robotnik a second time on his own. The mad scientist had chained a strange place called Little Planet to the Earth and planned to use its energies to rule both planets. On his quest to stop Robotnik, Sonic ran into the young Amy Rose, a pink hedgehog who was greatly infatuated with the blue blur. Amy was captured by Robotnik's latest creation, a robotic copy of Sonic named Metal Sonic._

_Sonic eventually stopped Robotnik again and rescued Amy, allowing Little Planet to return to where it came. However, Sonic just considered Amy a one-time acquaintance at the time, and it wouldn't be until much later that the two would see each other as friends. But the pink hedgehog wouldn't give up on trying to earn Sonic's respect, and she longed to have more adventures with the blue blur because of what he did for her. _

_Eventually, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy would meet again, but the circumstances that gathered them together would change the statue quo of the world for many months to come. Robotnik, growing tired of relying on just machines, began to focus on the myths and monstrosities of the world he lived in. Remembering legends spoken of in the ruins of Angel Island, Robotnik sought to break the Master Emerald and free it's inhabitant, the liquid beast Chaos._

_Angel Island fell not long afterwards, and as Robotnik gathered the scattered Chaos Emeralds to power Chaos Sonic, Tails and Knuckles sought to stop him. Amy was drawn into this conflict as well when a Flicky carrying a Chaos Emerald in its necklace happened to fall in front of her. But the pink hedgehog didn't realize this at first and sought to care for the bird on her on, and in her travels she happened to come across Sonic himself and asked for his help in keeping the bird safe._

_Alas though, Amy was eventually captured by Robotnik's latest robot, ZERO, and brought to the floating carrier the Egg Carrier. The carrier would prove to be a gathering site for many people involved in Robotnik's latest scheme, as Sonic and Tails arrived via Tails' Tornado bi-plane while Knuckles snuck aboard by trailing another of Robotnik's robots, E-102 Gamma, who had captured a Frog imbued with Chaos' tail that was the friend of one Big the Cat._

_While Sonic and Tails infiltrated the Egg Carrier in search of Robotnik, Knuckles sought the remaining broken pieces of the Master Emerald while Amy made a friend in Gamma, who released the pink hedgehog from her cell and allowed her to catch up with Sonic and Tails later on. Meanwhile, Big found his friend Froggy inside the carrier. Eventually the Egg Carrier was broken and sent on a rapid descent towards the ocean, and with Chaos seemingly defeated Knuckles took the six Chaos Emeralds along with the completed Master Emerald and returned to Angel Island._

_Meanwhile, Sonic went to finish his battle with Robotnik after the latter's plan to blow up Station Square with a missile was foiled by Tails. At the same time, Gamma destroyed his brother robots and ended up releasing his own Flicky after finishing off his upgraded brother Beta. As it turns out, both robots housed the parents of the Flicky Amy had been caring for, and after finishing Zero off once and for all Amy got the Flicky family to reunite. All this combined with Knuckles raising Angel Island should have signified a happy ending, right?_

_As it turns out though, Chaos was not quite dead, and after ambushing Robotnik and knocking his unconscious body towards the Angel Island shrine Chaos took the six Chaos Emeralds in Knuckles' possession. All that was left was the seventh, which happened to be in the Tornado that Big had taken for himself to escape the Egg Carrier earlier. Unable to stop Chaos from obtaining all seven emeralds, Sonic could only watch as Perfect Chaos flooded Station Square, burying hundreds of humans underwater while destroying the buildings around it almost perfectly._

_The six heroes that had taken part in Chaos' rampage, including the Flicky form of Gamma, gathered in the ruins of Station Square with the drained Chaos Emeralds. From there Tikal, a spiritual remnant of the Echidna race that lived on Angel Island, revealed the truth about Chaos. Thousands of years ago, Tikal's father planned to use the Chaos Emeralds for war, and an attack on the shrine made the normally docile Chaos go on a rampage after the Echidnas trampled the innocent Chao in their quest for power._

_The Echidnas were nearly wiped-out in the rampage, and Tikal was left with no choice but to use the Master Emerald to seal Chaos away. Chaos, with all of his hatred, would flood the world if his anger wasn't met with kindness. Using the positive energy of the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic went Super and quelled Perfect Chaos with a short battle, and Chaos returned to the Master Emerald with Tikal peacefully._

_Though Station Square had been flooded, the humans began to recover, but with Robotnik still on the loose it would only be a matter of time before something else happened to threaten the world. However Sonic, in an act of kindness to cheer people up, began spreading the name "Eggman" to little kids around the world. Everyone who feared Robotnik began to call the doctor by this name, and instead of fearing him they began to laugh at him. _

_Eggman was understandably furious at this, and vowed to show the world the true might of the Robotnik legacy. Pulling out his grandfather's diary, Eggman gathered whatever resources he could and quickly broke into the military's Prison Island to free the "ultimate life form", a black hedgehog by the name of Shadow. Shadow was fifty years old, but looked to be around the same age as Sonic._

_Shadow offered Eggman a granted wish, and after proving his power by destroying the strongest G.U.N. had to offer Eggman agreed to meet Shadow aboard the Space Colony Ark. As Shadow went solo in search of a Chaos Emerald, Sonic was captured by G.U.N. as a means of covering up the truth behind Shadow's existence. However, Sonic broke free and eventually met his fake for the first time. Shadow demonstrated "Chaos Control" during their confrontation, a technique the manipulates the energies of the Chaos Emerald and allows one to freeze time around them._

_Afterwards, Sonic was captured by G.U.N. and sent to Prison Island. Meanwhile, Knuckles found his Master Emerald stolen by a thief named Rogue the Bat. Forced to pursue the bat off of Angel Island, Knuckles eventually confronted Rogue in the desert. Eggman also happened to catch the two's confrontation and tried to snatch the Master Emerald on a return trip to his base. Knuckles was forced to break the Master Emerald, causing him and Rogue to go and try to find the scattered remains._

_However, Rogue also had other plans. Infiltrating Eggman's base, Rogue followed the doctor to the Ark, where Eggman had finally met with Shadow. Shadow revealed the Eclipse Cannon, a powerful weapon that could destroy an entire world with the help of the Chaos Emeralds. Rogue, in an attempt to gain the trust of Eggman and Shadow, revealed to them the location of three Emeralds on Prison Island while also giving them two Emeralds of her own. _

_Eggman, Shadow and Rogue set foot on Prison Island, where they happened across Amy, who came to the island to try and free the wrongly accused Sonic. After mistaking Shadow for Sonic, Amy had to be rescued by Tails, who used his mech Tornado to defeat Eggman's mech. Eggman then went his separate way, leaving Rogue and Shadow to their devices while Tails and Amy quickly freed Sonic from his jail cell. Sonic then went in hot pursuit of his "faker", and the two ended up confronting each other in the jungle._

_The two's match was interrupted by Eggman's warning that the island was about to blow up. Sonic went to find Tails and Amy, while Shadow quickly freed Rogue from her imprisonment and brought her back to the Ark with Chaos Control. Sonic, Tails and Amy then watched as Eggman blew up half the moon as a display of the Eclipse Cannon's power, and after Knuckles tagged along with them the four heroes went to Eggman's pyramid base and hitched a ride on a rocket to the Ark. There, Knuckles fought Rogue and got the Master Emerald fix, while Sonic ended up being lured into a trap that allowed Eggman to jettison him into space after forcing him into an exploding capsule._

_Tails quickly got revenge on Eggman, but at the same time the sneaky doctor snuck away with the last Chaos Emerald that Tails had. Sonic managed to escape with the help of Chaos Control, and after a rush through the outdoors of the Ark Sonic confronted Shadow one last time. Using the fake Chaos Emerald Tails created, Sonic matched Shadow's own Chaos Control and managed to defeat the black hedgehog, destroying the front of the Ark cannon in the process by slamming the fake Chaos Emerald into it. _

_However, Eggman nonetheless put the final real Chaos Emerald into the core, but instead of the energies backfiring on the doctor they instead caused the Ark to start plummeting towards the planet. A video played on the colony and across the world, revealing that Eggman's grandfather Gerald Robotnik, out of revenge for G.U.N. mercilessly murdering his granddaughter Maria because of Shadow's existence, programmed the Ark to crash into the Earth and blow it up. _

_Eggman, disgusted by what his grandfather had done, allied himself with Sonic and friends to stop the Ark from crashing by using Knuckles' Master Emerald to stop the energies of the Chaos Emeralds that were powering the colony. All the heroes worked together to reach the core, though Amy at first had to convince Shadow that not all humans should be judged based on what happened with Maria. Seeing a bit of Maria in Amy, Shadow ran to the core as fast as he could to help._

_Shadow fought off the prototype of the ultimate life, the Biolizard, while Sonic and Knuckles reached the shrine shaped like the Angel Island one to stop the Chaos Emeralds. But the Biolizard induced Chaos Control and attached itself to the broken cannon, forcing the Ark towards the planet in one final push that forced Sonic and Shadow to go Super and destroy the creature for good. They then used a combined Chaos Control to put the Ark back in place, the energy it took to do so causing Shadow to seemingly plummet to his death towards the Earth._

_With the Ark incident done and over with, Eggman denounced the Robotnik name because of what his grandfather had planned to do, and everyone returned to Earth. However, Eggman, knowing far too well that something was off about Shadow's final moments, went to the place he calculated the black hedgehog could have fallen to and found his unconscious body. Taking the black hedgehog back to his base, Eggman kept him in stasis while secretly cloning him into hundreds of androids._

_But before the fruits of his labors could be completed, Metal Sonic returned to the doctor, having overridden Eggman's control over him and quickly using his newfound copying powers to take on the form of his former master while locking him away where no one could find him. Metal Sonic then built an armada of battleships and set forth to force Sonic to him for battle. At the same time, Metal Sonic began copying the powers of other major forces to ensure his victory, including the remnants of Chaos from Froggy._

_Metal Sonic's activities grabbed the attention of four teams. First was Sonic's team, which consisted of himself, Tails and Knuckles. The second was Team Dark, which was formed after Rogue infiltrated one of Eggman's bases and freed the now amnesiac Shadow while also awakening his guard, the last of the E-Series robots E-123 Omega, who disliked Eggman and his robots with a furious passion. The third was Team Rose, which consisted of Amy Rose, Big the Cat, and newcomer Cream the Rabbit who Sonic helped out once before this particular adventure. The three sought out Sonic after assuming he kidnapped Froggy and one of Cream's Chao friends, Chocola._

_The final team was the Chaotix, a detective agency that consisted of Vector the Crocodile, Charmy the Bee, and Espio the Chameleon. The three received a walkie-talkie from the real Eggman, who managed to sneak the device out while Metal Sonic kidnapped Froggy and Chocola, and were tasked with stopping the fake Eggman's plans. All four teams converged upon the fake Eggman's location amidst his Egg Fleet, and after taking down his Egg Emperor the Chaotix freed the real Eggman._

_Eggman revealed Metal Sonic's deception, but the metallic hedgehog used the date he received from Sonic, Shadow and Chaos to become the Metal Overlord. As Sonic, Tails and Knuckles worked on getting the Chaos Emeralds ready for action, the other three teams dealt whatever damage they could to Metal Overlord. Eventually, Team Super Sonic managed to beat Metal Sonic so hard that the robot was knocked back into his original state, where he was given to Eggman for reprogramming._

_However, along this adventure, Shadow began to doubt his own identity, as not only could he not remember barely anything about his past, but because Rogue ended up being very evasive when it came to answering his questions. Eventually, Shadow was approached by a alien calling himself Black Doom, who claimed to know the truth about Shadow's past._

_Shadow was tasked with finding the seven Chaos Emeralds to learn the truth of his past. After a confusing and unconfirmed series of events that led to Shadow getting the emeralds and ending up aboard the Black Arms' Black Comet, Black Doom revealed that he was Shadow's father and used Chaos Control to warp the comet to the planet with the intention of turning the populace into food. Shadow, after learning that Gerald had intended for him to be the savior of the planet before he went insane, used his super form along with the Eclipse Cannon to end Black Doom forever while also saying farewell to his past._

_Months after this incident, the Master Emerald unexpectedly gave birth to a strange cyan hedgehog, who gathered the Chaos Emeralds in an attempt to achieved the power necessary to destroy the Earth and rid the universe of his only opposition, the infinitely powered Master Emerald itself. Sonic and Shadow, using a combination of Chaos Control and the Super Emeralds, became Hyper Shadic and stopped this strange hedgehog. This would later be referred to as the "Nazo Incident"._

_Later on, a dimensional rift between two worlds caused the fiery tempered heroine Blaze the Cat to arrive in Sonic's world. The two, after some antagonistic behavior between each other, teamed up to stop Eggman and his alternate universe counterpart, Eggman Nega, from using the Sol and Chaos Emeralds to take over both worlds. The two later met again in Blaze's worlds and stopped the doctors once more._

_The time traveling hedgehog named Silver appeared not long after that, revealing that Eggman Nega was actually a descendant of Eggman from the far future (Don't try and make sense of this, please). Eggman Nega attempted to turn the world of the past into a card by using the Angel Island from the future that he dragged into the present along with his own devices. He later attempted to release the fiery demon Ifrit by using the Chao, but thanks to Silver he was sealed away in Ifrit's dimension and has not been seen since._

_Sonic himself eventually came to blows with Eggman one-on-one for the first time in a long while, as Eggman launched an armada in space for seemingly unknown reasons. The blue hedgehog, using the Chaos Emeralds to deal with most of the fleet, was led into a trap that allowed Eggman to split open the planet to free Dark Gaia, at the same time transforming Sonic into a werewolf-like creature. _

_Sonic, using this new form while teaming up with Chip, the good counterpart of Dark Gaia named Light Gaia, managed to stop Eggman inside of his newly built Eggmanland while also sealing Dark Gaia away. Sadly, Chip had to stay in the center of the planet, but for the first time in his life Sonic was given a memento of his time with Chip and has kept it with him ever since that day. _

_Many others threats arose for Sonic to deal with after that. From the curse of Erazor Djinn of the Arabian Nights to the immortality seeking Merlina of King Arthur's time and the board riding thieves known as the Babylon Rogues, Sonic was never at a loss for an adventure. And he always had many, many friends to cheer him on or help him out when he alone couldn't get the job done._

_But when it came time for Eggman's next scheme, Sonic and Tails were the only two who went to stop him, harkening back to the old days when it was just them against a mad scientist and his animal filled robots. This time, Eggman had stolen hundreds of aliens called Wisps and planned to use their Hyper-go-on energy to create a mind control laser aimed at the planet. Disguising his plans with a theme park that didn't fool Sonic in the slightest, the two heroes set out across the five Wisp planets that Eggman had towed into place around his amusement park to deal with the generators Eggman had set up._

_However, Eggman was once again foiled by something neither he nor Sonic could have seen coming, and the resulting overload of negative Hyper-go-on energy created a black hole that consumed the amusement park. After defeating Eggman's Nega Wisp Armor, Sonic tried to escape the black hole, but failed completely. Thankfully, the Wisps freed him and brought him back to Earth, where they then returned their planets back to where they once belonged. _

_While Sonic and Tails were up in space dealing with Eggman, the rest of Sonic's friends were busy throwing together his 20__th__ birthday party. Gathering everyone who was willing to come, including Blaze thanks to a little quick thinking on Tails' end, the party began rather happily for Sonic and friends as they celebrated all the good times they shared together. However, the party was quickly ruined by the arrival of the Time Eater, a large mist purple monster that dragged Sonic's friends into different periods of his past and began to erase time itself._

_Sonic quickly had to work to save his friends, and by teaming up with his past self he managed to free them all while gathering the seven Chaos Emeralds so he could face the Time Eater head-on. As it turned out though, after his previous defeat Dr. Eggman had come across the primordial remains of the Time Eater and sought to use it to undo all of his past defeats, disregarding the fact that in doing so he was dooming time to collapse upon itself. With the help of his past self, Eggman had nearly succeeded in ending both Sonic's with the Time Eater._

_However, with the cheers of all the allies Sonic had made over the years, the two blue Hedgehogs went into their Super forms and confronted the Time Eater, defeating it so thoroughly that everyone was sent back to the present day, while both Eggmen were kept trapped in the white void that was left from their earlier rampage in the Time Eater. Once the past Sonic and Tails went back to their time, Sonic and friends celebrated the remainder of the blue blur's birthday in peace. But Eggman was bound to return, and who knows how far he will go now that his plan to erase his past mistakes had failed…_

**Clash of the Elements Part 4, Story 4: Messenger from Nega**

**Chapter 1: Eggman's Return**

In a lone abandoned factory, two little robots spend their days sitting on a couch and watching the TV in front of them. One robot was red and shaped like an orb when compressed, but when unfolded he had two thin bendable metallic arms and sleek, shiny joints. The other robot was yellow and was shaped like a cube when compressed, but he had an overall bulkier appearance to him. The cube robot dully held a remote towards the TV, rapidly pressing the channel buttons to try and find a decent show.

"I say Orbot, there's just nuthin' good on this daggum television these days." The cube robot says with a thick cowboy accent to his fellow companion.

Orbot, who was leaning back against the left arm of the chair with a bored expression in his eyes, said in an emotionless yet calm sounding voice "Well the doctor was usually the one covering the cable bills for us, Cubot. We can't exactly send them in ourselves since we are robots, after all."

"Well he should have paid for dem extended services before he disappeared off into space." Cubot replies, at the end of his sentence tossing the remote over the couch and breaking it with that very action as he lets out an uncaring shrug.

Orbot sits himself upright and says to his companion with a gesture of his right hand "Well its not like he could have predicted the outcome of his latest plan…Despite his very, VERY high defeat record." The robot's tone was filled with notable sarcasm at the end.

Cubot responds to his companion after leaping on the couch once to turn and face him "But now there's nuthin' to do around here pardner!"

Orbot sighs, agreeing with his cubed companion as he leans back against the arm of the couch and folds his hands against his stick shaped chest, saying to him in turn "I suppose you're right Cubot…Who knows? Perhaps now would be a good time to switch over to Sonic's side. He seems like a fun guy to hang out with."

As Orbot spoke, he was completely unaware of the sound of footsteps approaching him from behind. But when the person making that noise speaks up, the orb shaped robot immediately snaps to an upright position and turns around. "Hmph, glad to hear you were SO concerned about my well-being while I was gone!" The man says in a grumpy yet refined tone of voice.

The man was a rather portly one with a black leather pants/shoes suit and a stylish red shirt with one oval shaped silver button on each side and a noticeable zipped in the front. The man had two white gloves and a pair of blue, small lens glasses along with a pair of advanced goggles on the top of his head. His bushy brown mustache was the only bit of hair noticeable on his body, otherwise he was bald as bald could be. Orbot said to the man in utter shock "S-Sir. Its an honor to h-have you back. How was your little trip out in space?"

"Barely productive." The man responded bluntly with a slight snarl being heard in his voice as he gestured towards the orbed shape and began to walk in front of the couch.

As he walked in front of the two robots, he asked with little care in his voice "And just how did YOU two end up back here?"

Cubot snaps out an answer before Orbot could calmly reply in a way that wouldn't ruin things for the two of them "Well after we 'ere left floatin' in the depths of space by you we tried to make our way to be the planet, which actually only took about a few good days I reckon. Then we just sat around bored out of our wits before Orbot here came up with the brilliant idea of hanging out with Sonic!"

Orbot slaps the front of his forehead and sighs when his companion was finished, but the man just gestured his left arm off to the side and said without much of a care in the world "Well if you prefer his company to mine, then go right ahead. It wouldn't be the first time I've had traitorous robots on my side. But if you are going to leave, then do it now. I don't want either of you clowns around for when I start my next plan."

Orbot and Cubot are both surprised by this reaction from their creator, and Orbot goes on to ask "Sir? Is everything all right? You seem rather serious right now."

"Of course I'm serious! I can't afford to mess this plan up! This time for certain, I will defeat Sonic!" The man boldly declares.

Orbot bluntly replies with after a brief glance towards a shrugging Cubot "Sir, no offense, but you say that far too often for my liking. So may I ask, what will make THIS plan any different from the rest?"

"Because, my sharp-tongued little robot, I've finally determined Sonic's weakness!" The man proclaims in a bombastic tone of voice as he triumphantly pumps his right fist into the air.

"The fact that he's afraid of water? Sir, I reckon everyone knows that." Cubot, in his dumbness, replies with an obvious answer.

As the man lowers his left he scowls and slowly replies with "No you imbecile. Sonic's friends are his weakness. Haven't you noticed at all how time and time again Sonic's friends are there to either cheer him on or support him when he fights me or any of those many monsters that tried to destroy the world?"

Cubot replies with "Well not really. Neither of us were built before then." His straightforward response makes both Orbot and the man groan.

The man goes on to say without acknowledging his robot's words "Sonic's friends have allowed Sonic to always carry on even when I send the toughest of my machines after him. Remove them all from the equation, and what will give Sonic the strength to defeat me?"

Orbot replies after taking a brief moment to think "…Nothing would. In fact, calculations suggest that there is a 98.7% chance of victory in your favor if you remove Sonic's friends from the equation. But sir, would you actually be able to go through with it?"

The man replies in an honest tone of voice "Of course not. To tackle some of Sonic's friends in battle would be a foolish idea. No, instead of killing them I have another plan in mind. But I have to get to work now, there's a lot that must be done before I can confront Sonic head-on."

After nudging his glasses up a bit, the man looks away from the two robots and extends his right hand out beside him, saying in an upfront tone "Also, speaking of my past experience with traitorous robots…" before quietly snapping his fingers in mid-air.

In a swift second a blur of metallic blue appears in front of the couch Cubot and Orbot are sitting on and the being responsible reaches out with his metallic claws, grabbing them both by their stick-like bodies and pulling them closer to its body. The being is a metallic blue hedgehog with lifeless red eyes, obvious silver metal joints and a rocket turbine acting as its main body. Orbot gulps as well as he could with his voice processor and says in a nervous tone of voice "S-So nice to meet you for the first time, Metal Sonic…If its not too much to ask, could you perhaps loosen your grip on us a bit?"

The man responds for the mute metallic hedgehog by saying "For the time being, Metal Sonic will be your boss. He will be sure to put you two to work in building one of my finer creations that I have come up with in months!"

Cubot turns to face Orbot and says to him in a depressed tone of voice "You know, right now I'm missing just flipping through the channels like we were minutes before."

Orbot replies with a sigh and a simple "Me too my good friend, me too…"

Metal Sonic then carries the two robots off, leaving the man to walk off to his own devices. He goes into a dark room with a few computer monitors running around what appears to be a single golden ring floating in the middle of a glass capsule cage. Tapping a few buttons to input a code while casually walking beside the console he is using at the moment, the man approaches the rising capsule and quickly swipes the ring from mid-air with his right hand.

Looking down upon the ring with a mischievous smile on his face, the man says in a bombastic tone of voice "Now my little friend, its time you showed me the way to that secret reservoir of power hidden within Angel Island! And with it I, Dr. Eggman, shall finally establish the Eggman Empire as the dominant power in this world! Mwahahaha…MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

_Next Time: The Blue Blur Himself!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: In His World**

In the depths of space, one teenage boy flies about with a small smile on his face. His name was Riku, the third of the reborn Elemental Overlords who act as the protectors of the good and righteous in the world. However, this particular Elemental Overlord had very recently gained a differing view on that previously dictated role thanks to the influencing presences of the dragons of Light and Darkness, Sodenko and Takashi respectively.

Now, Riku has seen that Light and Darkness can not just be defined through one generalizing point of view. One who controls light may have dark intentions, and it is all too possible for a pure heart to wield the might of darkness. As the wielder of the newly discovered Chaos element, Riku had to make sure to forever keep those views as a genuine part of his thoughts and actions from then on in order to keep the power that new form grants him while also ensuring the loyalty of the two dragons that observe him from a prison in a far-off void.

With a shield of air protecting him as he flies through space, Riku tries to communicate with the nicer of the two dragons through his thoughts for the first time in a week, saying in a delicate tone _"How are you holding up right now Takashi?" _

"_Pretty fine…That is, as fine as anyone can be in a blank realm with barely anything to do." _Takashi jokingly replies in his usual gruff tone of voice.

"_You are welcome to come out and explore space with me anytime Takashi." _Riku kindly responds with.

"_Thanks but no thanks. I'd feel a bit guilty if I was out there while my sister was left in here." _Takashi honestly says to the boy.

"_Well all Sodenko has to do is be genuinely remorseful for her behavior and I would break her chain in an instant." _Riku replies, at the same time using his Light powers to sense the white dragon's presence within the other realm and noting her coiled stance the moment he says that.

"_Heh, I guess she's not ready yet." _Riku says in a somewhat disappointed tone of voice, letting out a light sigh moments later.

"_Admittedly though, it is starting to get a little boring in here ever since you cut my chain." _Takashi admits after Riku has said his piece.

"_It wasn't boring the other two-thousand years you were inside of that void?" _The teenage Overlord asks in a sarcastic tone of voice.

"_No, Sodenko and I generally had the ability to observe some of the stuff that was going on in the outside world so long as it pertained to our respective elements or you three carriers of the Elemental Overlord's legacy. But ever since you broke my chain my connection to anything that isn't you has slowly been breaking away." _Takashi says.

Riku then goes quiet for a few moments as he reflects on something, and proceeds to ask the black dragon once he is done _"Do you still have a connection to my brother?" _

"…_The second Elemental Overlord? Sorry Riku, my connection to him was one of the first to drop. 'D.' probably noticed the break immediately and dropped my view on him then and there." _Takashi's remark makes the boy mutter out a slight "Oh…" to himself as a melancholy expression drops across his face.

In an attempt to cheer up the depress Elemental Overlord, Takashi goes on to mention _"Errr…Well, if you want to know something about the first Elemental Overlord though, I can tell you that he seems to currently be in the middle of a battle with a green-haired fedora wea-" _

Before Takashi can finish trying to draw Riku's attention away from his brother's condition, the boy quickly glances off to the right upon detecting the presence of a planet full of life and happens to see that the planet he is observing is blue and green…And looks almost exactly like Earth.

"_Hold that thought for now Takashi." _Riku thinks before cutting off his link to the two dragons and pointing his body in the direction of the 'Earth' he sees up ahead.

"That can't be right…Have I come back to my own Earth?" As the teenage Overlord ponders this question to himself he begins to fly towards the planet. "No wait, if this was my Earth then I'd sense my brother's presence somewhere, even if he ended up…"

Stopping himself from saying those dreaded words, Riku shakes his head to toss those thoughts away as he heads towards this 'Earth'. Wasting little time in penetrating the atmosphere of the planet, the teenage Overlord descends through the clouds and tries to make his way to the nearest segment of ground below his line of sight. Along the way, he quickly makes glances at his body, letting out a relieved sigh as he notes quietly "Good, I'm not changing into another life form like last time…"

As the ground neared closer, the teenage Overlord flips around so his feet are pointed towards the ground and he lands not long afterwards, his impact making a tiny circle of dirt around his shoes. The first thing Riku notices is that he had landed on a normal grassy plain, which did little to help him determine just where he was at on this strange Earth. The air was clean and there was a clear sign of life on the planet as the teenage Overlord happened to notice a city in the distance to the right as he descended.

"Couldn't risk falling directly into the city though. Who knows what type of history this planet has?" Riku notes to himself as he clenches his right hand into a fist and glances towards the upper right, noticing that the glowing rays of the sun are peering through cracks in the clouds and continuing on with his previous words by mentioning "Though considering my luck with planets, maybe a flying human won't seem out of the ordinary to the populace here…"

The teenage Overlord lowers his head and eases his fist as he begins to walk across the surface of the planet to get a preliminary overlook of the scenery. Skidding down a nearby hill with his shoes angled at their sides, Riku comes across a few trees littered about the field of grass. The boy flinched in surprise for a moment though, as instead of normal leaves the trees were littered with green cubes of differing sizes that swayed in the breeze like leaves would. These leaves were attached to trees that all had a stripe pattern on them, and each tree had perfectly circular trunks.

Quietly looking at the trees for a few seconds, Riku proceeded to fold his arms in front of his chest and walk forward, saying in a joking tone of voice "Well…This planet definitely has an interesting set of plant life…"

Hearing the chirping of birds, the boy looks up and notices a small flock flying through the air. However, the "birds" in question had stout bodies with wings barely the size of pennies and heads roughly the height of the rest of their bodies. Things then began to click in Riku's head as he slowly notes "And interesting…aviary life…too…"

Slowly lowering his head and raising his right fingers against his chin to think about these two peculiar sights, Riku murmurs to himself "Hey wait a moment here…"

Adding up all the facts in his mind, the teenage Overlord begins to quietly say "I must have landed on…"

Before he finishes, a blur of pure blue streaks past the right side of his body. A powerful breeze follows behind the blur, and Riku's clothes and hair are swayed forward as the boy stumbles as he tries to keep himself balanced on the ground. A small smile crosses Riku's face as he sees the blue blur running through the grassy plains, and he finishes his earlier sentence with a merry sounding "Sonic the Hedgehog's Earth…"

Though the question of how there could be multiple Earths in the same universe began to form in Riku's head, it was quickly overtaken by the boy's desire to find and speak to the famous blue hedgehog in person. But with the speed that the hedgehog was going at currently the odds were slim that Riku would be able to catch up with him even if he started right now. Snapping his fingers and letting out a slight "Tsk" in disappointment, Riku says to himself "Maybe I'll run into him later."

"Run into who later?" A snappy and energetic voice speaks to Riku from behind, causing the boy to immediately leap to the right while simultaneously flipping his body around mid-jump. Standing on the ground in front of him is a blue-hedgehog with green eyes, white gloves, red shoes and a cocky grin on his face. The hedgehog, who was about as tall as Riku up to the bottom of his chin, quietly tapped his feet on the ground as he tilted his head and looked at this mysterious boy.

The hedgehog then zips out of view, appearing behind the boy with arms folded as he examines his body. Riku only manages to twist his head around to glance at the hedgehog from over his right shoulder before the blue blur zips right back in front of him and asks "You aren't from around here, are you?"

The teenage Overlord flinches in shock at what the hedgehog was asking, and in a stuttering voice he gestures his right hand forward and asks "W-What makes you think I'm not from around here?"

The blue hedgehog takes his right hand out and wiggles the pointer finger in the air, gesturing with it towards the bottom of the boy's body as he says in a joking tone "Your shoes. They aren't made here."

Riku embarrassingly comes out and says to the blue hedgehog "W-Well you see…" In a spark of inspiration though, the boy hopes on the similar geology of his Earth and this one and says to the hedgehog confidently "I'm British! My shoes were made in Europe!"

The blue hedgehog then quickly shrugs, saying with a barely caring attitude around him "Alright, whatever you say. Just making sure you weren't out to cause trouble."

The hedgehog then turns to the left and prepares to dash off, but as he started his run Riku quickly held his hand out with a wide-eyed expression and proclaimed "Wait Sonic!"

Having been referred to by his name, the blue blur skids to a stop and flips around, dashing back a few feet in front of the boy and saying in a joking tone of voice "You know, my name isn't Slug the Hedgehog, so whatcha holding me up for?"

With the blue hedgehog standing right in front of him with a anticipating expression on his face along with his right foot tapping and his arms folded against his chest, the teenage Overlord asked "Speaking of trouble…Is anyone causing any trouble around here for you?"

Sonic responds with a simple "Not at all. Though I kind of wish something would happen, I've just been running around since my birthday ended a while back."

Now that Riku knew what the situation was for Sonic's world, he cracked a light smile and breathed a sigh of relief as he thought about how nice it was to not drop in while some kind of villain was poking their head around and causing trouble. For once, the boy was going to just try and enjoy spending time with the planet's hero…Though for someone as wild and free as Sonic, that might actually prove to be a bit of a problem.

Of course, the first step towards having fun with someone like Sonic was to earn his trust. And with a smirk on his face, Riku quickly came up with an idea to entice the blue hedgehog into trusting him. First though, he acknowledged Sonic's earlier sentence "Well I'm glad to hear that everything is going ok for you."

Folding his arms in front of his chest and smiling, the teenage Overlord coyly asked "Saaay, if you aren't busy with anything major at the moment, is there a chance that you'd like to race?"

Sonic's eyes light up and a cocky grin crosses his face as he gestures with his right hand and asks "You're challenging me to a race? Do you know who I am?"

"The fastest thing alive, right?" Riku bluntly responds with a hint of respect towards the blue hedgehog's title. "It is a nice moniker, but lets see how you hold up against someone from another world."

The teenage Overlord unfurls his arms and takes a step back while Sonic smiles and points out "What happened to that 'I'm from Europe' story?" as he begins to bend his legs down and hold his hands atop his kneecaps as he stretches himself for the race.

Riku states in turn "Eh, it was a moment of stupidity on my part. Sorry if that might cause you to distrust me."

"Well you don't look like someone who'd cause any trouble, so I don't know why I wouldn't trust you." Sonic says, and as he stands upright and gives the boy a thumbs-up he states with a cocky smirk on his face "Besides, how can I possibly pass up a challenge?"

The blue hedgehog turns around and gestures towards the forest, saying as the boy stands beside him "Does eight laps sound good?"

"That seems rather short, honestly." Riku says.

"Eight laps around the planet sounds short to you?" Sonic says as he glances at the boy and smiles eagerly, saying afterwards "I like your confidence! Well, lets get moving!"

The blue hedgehog quickly folds his arms off to the right of his body as he kicks one foot up and breaks into a swift sprint, leaving Riku temporarily dumbfounded at the beginning of the forest as he thinks to himself _"Around the planet? Geez, that's a little extreme, but I suppose I can handle it." _The boy then lets his arms dangle beside his body as he breaks into a mighty sprint right behind the blue blur, his swift take-off leaving behind a gale that nearly blows the cubed leaves off of the nearby trees.

The intense speed kicked up by Sonic and Riku creates a mighty yet gentle gale behind them, but as a difference between the two of them the teenage Overlord breaks apart the ground beneath his feet as he runs. However, when he quickly makes it to the ocean surface, his feet runs across it in a completely gentle fashion. As he runs across the ocean, the environment becomes rather stagnate save for the clouds in the sky, which come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes.

There is also a rather nice smell coming from the waters that Riku takes in as he starts catching up to the blue hedgehog, who was running backwards with a surprised smile on his face and his legs rapidly kicking against the water in a circular manner. Sonic speaks out enthusiastically once Riku gets beside him "That's some wicked speed you have there!"

"Thanks for the compliment! I'm surprised I'm keeping up with you, honest!" Riku exclaims so the hedgehog could hear him.

Sonic flips his body around without breaking his speedy stride, saying as holds his arms beside him "Lets step it up!"

The blue blur then increases his speed further, kicking his legs around in the air at such speeds that they too become blurs on both sides of his body. And as Sonic zips onto dry land, Riku holds his eyes widened in surprise for a good couple of seconds before he smirks and states "I should have known he was trying to play fair…"

The teenage Overlord, however, was also holding back some of his speed, and with a burst of air emerging from behind his body that pushes back the water in a large but otherwise harmless wave. Making his way onto the dry land, the boy tries to catch up with Sonic, keeping a steady enough breath to sustain the oxygen for his sprint as he heads towards a mountain range. Watching the streak of blue zipping back and forth across the mountain face, the boy reaches the base of the first mountain and scales it quickly.

But even though he was catching up with Sonic slowly but surely, he was also breaking apart the environment below his feet as he ran unknowingly. The mountain range was crossed rather quickly, and the blue blur was more clearly noticeable in the distance now. The two began to cross a desert, whose heat didn't affect the two thanks to the cool gale wrapping around their bodies as they ran.

Past the desert the two heroes made their way back to the ocean, and in a lesser time than the last leg of water they managed to make it to the east coast of the next continent. Now the race was taken to the city, where the blue blur manages to zip through the busy streets without harming a single person who happened to be in the way. Riku, however, was not so lucky in the middle of his sprint.

As he moved through the streets, his untamed gale along with his rapid feet movements causing the concrete roads to be torn apart while the cars driving around are blown straight into the air. As he ran through the city, Riku heard the frantic honks coming from the cars behind him and quickly spun around and skid to a sudden stop in the middle of a four-way road. Noticing the torn up debris of concrete and the cars flying where he once ran, the teenage Overlord quickly thrust his hands into the air as he was unaware of all the people watching around him.

Relying on the Earth element, Riku catches all of the cars and concrete debris before even a single one crashes against the ground and break apart. Thankfully none of the cars had their windows open, so nobody spilt out of the vehicles. As the humans on both sides of the street murmur about what was happened in fearful shock, the cars heading towards the four-way street brake to a stop while Riku uses his powers to put the concrete perfectly back into place along the road he tore up.

He made sure to deal with this quickly before anyone in the vehicles panicked and did something to threaten their lives, and once the streets were fixed the boy lowered the cars back into place just in time for Sonic to zip on through the city and stop perfectly in place right in front of him. Seeing as the blue hedgehog didn't know what was going on at the moment, he looked at the boy and said with a curious tilt of his head and a gesture of his right hand "Hey, don't tell me you've given up already."

Riku lowers his hands beside his body, and without a single sign of exhaustion yet many embarrassed glances back and forth across the area the boy says to Sonic "Err…Can we get out of here and talk somewhere private?"

The blue hedgehog gives a thumbs-up and says with enthusiasm in his voice "There's a field to the west of here. I'll meet you there at sonic speed!"

Living up to his name, Sonic zips right through the city towards the aforementioned field, while Riku glances around at the murmuring humans and says in a very apologetic tone of voice as he kicks up into the air and takes flight "Sorry for causing trouble! I didn't mean to!"

The teenage Overlord then goes off to field, and upon descending he sees Sonic speeding around back and forth across the grass until he happens to notice the boy land. The hedgehog then zips right in front of him and gets straight to the point "So what's up? Why did you stop racing?"

Riku was up front and honest about his concerns, saying to the blue hedgehog "Its too dangerous for me to go as fast as you. I was tearing up the streets and putting innocent lives in danger."

Sonic asks "You were? But everything looked ok when I came back around."

The teenage Overlord sighs and goes on to state "That's because I put everything in the city back to normal before you arrived."

The blue hedgehog smirked and said in an intrigued tone of voice "Really now? You're just full of surprises, aren't ya?"

"Well, I kind of can control all of the elements." Riku states.

Sonic says in a barely fazed tone of voice "You'll have to tell me more about that later. Right now, I want to help you with your speed."

Riku flinched in surprise and said to Sonic "Wait, huh?! You want to help me out? …Why?"

Sonic shrugs and says honestly "I was enjoying our race. Haven't had some competition on foot for months!"

The teenage Overlord, despite realizing that the hedgehog's answer made sense, was still a little surprised by the generosity as he commented in his head _"I don't think I'll ever get used to this…" _

Riku then says to Sonic "So what are you gonna do about my speed problem?"

Sonic gestures his right pointer finger towards the boy and answers with "My buddy Tails could probably whip up a thingamajig for your shoes so you don't go busting up streets as you run."

Nodding his head to show faith towards the idea, Riku says to Sonic "Well, guess you can lead the way then."

"Sure thing!" Sonic says with enthusiasm as he turns himself around and quickly kicks into a run while Riku leaps into the air and flies after the blue hedgehog to follow him to the place that Tails' currently lives in…

_Next Time: Two Best Friends_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Sonic and Tails**

High in the sky above the planet, Riku kept a close watch over the blue streak that zipped across the grassy knolls and expansive lake surfaces. Sonic, in his mission to lead the boy to the workshop of his best friend Tails, led him through vibrant environments unlike anything the boy ever knew existed on his own Earth. From loop-de-loops made out of checkered patterns to ruins filled with deadly active statues, Sonic covered a good chunk of the continent before arriving at a set of mountains along the west coast.

Riku then descended as he noticed the blue blur disappearing within the fog surrounding the inner parts of the mountains. Looking upon the mountain range as it stretched to the right beside him, the teenage Overlord thought _"Huh, my brother's home would be somewhere in these mountains if this was my Earth…I wonder if a similar house is built around here. I might have to check later on."_

Once on the ground of the mountains Riku finds Sonic standing in front of a dainty little house with red metallic plating on all sides that are barely kept together by smooth ironed plates. There is a circular emblem with a pair of yellow fox tails painted beside the normal wooden door that the blue hedgehog was currently walking towards. After Sonic knocks on the door of the workshop he declares eagerly "Yo Tails, you awake in there?!"

The teenage Overlord stops walking once he reaches the bottom of the staircase so to not crowd Sonic when the door finally opens, and after opening his mouth he asks "Hey Sonic, you are going a little slow back there. Why?"

The blue hedgehog glances over his shoulder and says to the boy "Didn't want you to lose track of me. Color me surprised that you can fly as fast as you can run!" His second sentence in particular was spoken in an excited tone of voice.

The door then creaks open behind the blue hedgehog, causing him to turn around while Riku tilts his head to look inside the workshop as the person who owns it reveals himself. Wearing a welding mask while a still active custom-designed blowtorch is held in his thick, dirty glove is a bipedal yellow fox with two tails that twirl around slightly and red shoes that look mostly similar to Sonic's own. The fox shuts off his blowtorch and flips his mask over his head, looking at Sonic with his blue eyes and saying "Well hey there Sonic, I'm surprised to see you here!"

There was a smile on the fox's face as he quickly dropped his torch and swung his right hand out, smacking it directly into the grasp of the blue hedgehog's own hand so the two can have a swift handshake before retracing their arms and getting back to their conversation. Sonic gestures over his shoulder with his right pointer finger, getting straight to the point as he says to his buddy "Just thought I'd drop on by to see if you could help this guy out."

The fox glances over Sonic and looks at the boy standing quietly at the bottom of his staircase. At first Tails was a little suspicious of his presence, something he points out to his blue buddy "Ummm Sonic, why did you bring a human to my workshop?"

Sonic then lets out his pent up excitement to his friend Tails, saying to him as he opens with a swing of his hands in front of his body "Boy you wouldn't believe it Tails! This kid is almost as fast as I am, he can fly, and he can do some strange manipulation thingy with cars and rocks!"

"…And you don't find any of that suspicious, Sonic?" Tails says in a concerned tone of voice.

"Aww, you worry too much Tails." The blue hedgehog tries to dispels his friend's doubts with a nonchalant air around him and a swing of his right hand, and he continues on to say "The kid seems fine to me."

"Well I have reason to be suspicious. Remember the last human that came here with strange powers?" Tails whispers just on the off-chance that the mysterious boy was related to the one he was referring to.

Sonic however doesn't keep the conversation a secret from the human and blurts out much to Tails' surprise "Geez Tails, don't be so mopey about this! I'm sure after a few minutes you'll hit it off!"

The fox sighs in the face of the blue hedgehog's unstoppable jolly enthusiasm, and after dragging his left hand along his face he focuses back on his previous question and asks Sonic "Ignoring that assumption for a moment, are you going to tell me why you brought him here?"

Sonic snaps his fingers quickly and looks back at Tails, saying to him with an embarrassed chuckle preceding it "Sorry Tails, got caught up in my own excitement."

"Something you do far too often…" Tails whispers to himself as his friend goes on to answer his question "Anyways, the kid here has a bit of a problem controlling his speed, so we were hoping to do something about it."

Tails goes on to mention in a surprised tone of voice "So you came to me? Sonic, you're the expert on speed. Why don't you help him out?"

The blue hedgehog makes a snappy response with a gesture of his left hand as he says "You kidding Tails? I don't have the patience to mentor someone. Besides, you're telling me you can't whip up one of those gizmo thingies for his shoes?"

Tails' eyes light up instantly as he whips his torch up from the ground and clicks the flame on for one brief second while confidently smiling at Sonic and telling him straight up "You're doubting my smarts here Sonic? I can craft a device for his shoes with nothing but paperclips and a Kleenex box! Just bring him on in and I can make it in no time!"

Sonic grins and chuckles to himself, saying to the yellow fox afterwards "I knew you wouldn't let me down Tails!"

Tails turns around and heads back into his workshop ready to work while Sonic turns towards the boy and gives him the thumbs up to come on in. The blue hedgehog then walks inside while Riku ascends the staircase to enter the workshop. Unsurprisingly, the inside of Tails' place was cluttered with failed ideas and tools, with the only discernable objects being a set of rusting green lockers and a couple stools in the back. The fox weaves through his stuff to reach the back, while Sonic takes the faster route and jumps over it all.

Riku looks at some of the devices scattered about and comments "Huh, you've been hard at work in here, haven't you Tails?"

As the boy then proceeds to weave through the scattered assortment of stuff in the workshop, Tails replies to him with a barely humble "Well of course. What else am I going to do in my spare time when I have so much to work with?"

Once Sonic, Tails and Riku have arrived in the back of the room, the teenage Overlord looks towards one of the stools as the fox sits on the other, and after glancing back at the fox as he stares down at his shoes he politely asks "You don't mind if I sit down, do you?"

Tails, murmuring to himself as he looks at Riku's shoes with increasing interest, lets out a nonchalant "Sure, go right ahead."

Riku sits down on the chair and looks over at the fox, glancing off to the left and noticing how Sonic is just standing there with his foot tapping on the ground as he folded his arms and glanced over at his friend. Tails, so involved in looking at Riku's shoes, didn't say anything until the boy asked "Hey Tails, is something the matter here?"

Tails states with a great deal of interest in his voice "I'm fascinated by how odd your shoes look…The composition isn't similar to anything I have seen on the planet before."

When this matter is brought to attention, Sonic says to the boy "Oh yeah, you were going to tell me just what your deal was, weren't you?"

The fox lifts his head up and lists off what he knows so far about the boy "High speed, the ability to fly, the power of terrakenesis, these strange shoes of yours…You aren't from this planet, are you?"

When Tails asks this particular question, Sonic blurts out in surprise towards his friend "What?! Tails, are you suggesting that this kid is an alien?"

Tails shakes his head, but before the fox tosses out his own theories on the matter Riku interjects and says in a somewhat nervous tone "No no no, I'm perfectly human. No slimy flesh or strange appendages to be found underneath my skin, I assure you."

Sonic and Tails look at the boy, with the fox stating with a chuckle beforehand "No, I wasn't going to suggest that you were an alien. Though I have to question how you managed to reach the planet without some sort of space-faring vehicle without dealing with the deep pressure vacuum of space."

Riku responds in a confident, wise sounding manner towards the fox's inquiries "I use a compressed air cocoon to keep my oxygen levels stabilized."

The fox's eyes widen in shock at what he heard, saying in a loathsome tone of voice towards himself as he smacks the front of his head "Of course! A surrounding capsule of self-sustaining oxygen would solve the problem of a tank's limited supply! Why didn't I think of that before?"

Quickly reaching out towards the pile of junk off to the left of him to pull out a notepad, Tails quickly uses his tails to pick up a pen and use it to jot down some notes regarding this newfound information, and after tossing both things off to the wayside Riku chuckles and says to the fox "Well you'd still have to figure out how to propel a body through space without meshing carbon into the capsule."

Tails smiles and says to Riku "Hehe, yeah, but this is a good start."

Sonic laughs for a good few seconds, saying as he gestures to his foxy friend "See? I knew you two would hit it off!"

The yellow fox faces his friend and says to him in a jovial tone of voice "Yeah yeah, you are allowed to be right every now and then."

"Like when I knew Eggman was using that amusement park for evil purposes?" Sonic responds with in a smart-aleck tone of voice, which causes Tails to groan and mention "Don't remind me that I was wrong about that…"

The two share a jolly laugh like two best friends were expected to, and this brought a smile to Riku's face as he sat there watching. The blue hedgehog then glances back at the boy, saying to him with a gesture of his right hand "Oh yeah, you haven't introduced yourself yet."

The boy flinches and smiles in an embarrassed manner once Sonic addresses him since he had forgotten such an important matter. Extending his right hand out, Riku says to him "My name is Riku."

Swinging his right hand out to smack and clasp Riku's extended hand with a lot of enthusiasm and a smile on his face, Sonic states "And I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog!"

With a proper introduction out of the way between the teenage Overlord and the blue hedgehog, Tails looks at the boy and says to him "And I'm Miles 'Tails' Prower, but you can just call me Tails."

Riku nods his head as he pulls his hand away from Sonic's body, saying to the yellow fox in a pleasant voice "Its nice to meet you."

The teenage Overlord then folds his hands together atop his legs, saying to Sonic and Tails "Alright, I'm going to just cut to the chase about what my deal is."

"Though I'm a human, I've been granted the power to control the elements as the new carrier of the legacy of the Elemental Overlord himself. My goal is to seek out worlds that need my help as I travel the universe. I came here because this place looked a lot like my Earth from above, so I thought it was an anomaly." Riku explains.

Sonic then looks at the boy and says to him "So that's why you asked if trouble was brewing. I must admit, that sounds like a pretty sweet job you have there."

Riku is unsurprised by how lightly the blue hedgehog was taking his job, but even so the boy felt like stressing to Sonic as he thinks back to what he's had to deal with so far "Its not all fun and games out there…" and as he remembers the more pleasant moments of his journey he smiles and says to the hedgehog "But I won't ever forget the people I've met or the adventures I've had."

Sonic nods his head and goes on to ask "Say, if you've been going to other worlds, have you happened to meet other heroes? You know, Kirby, Mario, Pit, Link? Those guys were pretty rockin' when I met them a while ago."

The teenage Overlord responds by tapping his fingers against his chin, saying afterwards to the eagerly awaiting hedgehog "I haven't met Mario or Pit, but I did go to Kirby and Link's worlds…Though as far as Link goes…"

Riku had a sorrowful expression on his face for a moment, but decided against telling Sonic the truth as he smiles and says to him "He's doing fine."

"Heh, glad to hear that. I hope that crazy Master Hand guy gathers a lot of heroes again sometime. That was an amazing experience!" The blue hedgehog expresses a high amount of excitement in his voice, but Tails nervously rubs the back of his head and points out to his friend "But Sonic, weren't you almost turned into an immobile trophy?"

Sonic swung his right hand towards Tails, saying in a cocky tone of voice "Come on Tails, like his silly rings would have been able to catch me. Besides, since I gave Tabuu the Ta-BOOT everything will be fine next time."

"Fair enough." Tails says in a nonchalant tone, and with this current conversation out of the way the fox recalls the reason the three of them had gathered here in the first place and quickly turns to Riku and says with a snap of his fingers "Oh yeah, now I should get to work on your shoes. If you can just take them both off for me Riku…"

The teenage Overlord nods his head and quickly pulls his shoes off with a lift of his legs and a gesture of his fingers to move them off of his feet and hand them over to Tails. The fox, eager to get to work, stands up off of his stool with shoes in the gloves and begins to go towards his tool desk. Sonic quickly asks his friend "Hey Tails, how long is this going to take?"

The yellow fox responds as he pulls out a tube of glue as large as his head and flips off his mask "It might take an hour Sonic, so if you want to take a seat-"

Sonic swings his arms to the right and exclaims to Tails "Well I'll see you two later then!" And the blue blur leaps over the junk and quickly zips out of the workshop, his momentum pushing the door shut with ease. Tails sighs and says in a nonchalant tone "Yeah I should have seen that coming."

"It is in his nature." Riku quietly comments, which causes Tails to let out a quiet chuckle and say "I wouldn't have it any other way."

As the yellow fox works on Riku's shoes and the boy sits on the stool with his socked feet wiggling in mid-air, Tails decides to ask him "So hey, I was wondering something for a while now. Sonic said you hadn't introduced yourself yet, which implies you knew him right off the bat despite not being from this world. Why is that?"

Riku puts on a somewhat nervous grin once Tails asked that particularly volatile question, saying with an equally nervous chuckle afterwards "The answer might be a little hard to swallow."

"You already mentioned that there is more than one Earth out there. I don't you can unnerve me with anything else." Tails says in a bold tone of voice as he whips his left tail out and picks up a screwdriver.

The teenage Overlord ponders what the yellow fox said for a moment and goes on to state with a gesture of his right hand and a more relaxed smile "Good point. Well, I guess this isn't that hard to explain. On my world, both you and Sonic and the adventures you go on are depicted in video game format."

"Oh really?" Tails says with a lot of intrigue in his voice before he goes on to mention "We actually have video games based on our adventures here to. Some guy named Yuji Naka was the head of the development process, but he retired recently and passed on his work to his 'Sonic Team'."

Riku staggers for a moment as he hears that, his feet dropping to the ground to keep him stable as he mutters out "W-Well that's odd. Our Earth had a Yuji Naka at one point who also worked on the Sonic series, and he passed off the work to Sonic Team as well."

Tails goes on to mention "And you're sure this isn't your Earth?" To which the teenage Overlord responds with a shake of his head and a simple comment of "Can't be. My brother isn't here and not only that…"

Riku hesitated for a moment on what he was about to say, but sighed and just came out admitting "…You guys are actually considered fictional characters on my Earth. "

Tails smiles as he continues to work on the boy's shoes, saying in a nonchalant tone of voice "Hehe, so I guess it was quite a shock to find out that we were real, huh?"

The teenage Overlord nods his head and gestures towards the fox, saying to him afterwards "Even after three other worlds, its still hard to fathom the things I've seen."

The yellow fox then moves on to a different subject, mentioning to Riku as he tosses the glue bottle and screwdriver away and whips out a sander "At least this explains why Sonic trusted you so quickly. You used your knowledge of his personality to get him into a race and then performed a heroic deed to further earn his favor."

Riku nervously chuckles and closes his eyelids shut, saying in response to Tails' assumptions "Well that heroic deed wasn't intended, though if the chance arose I would have done one without hesitation not to earn Sonic's favor but because it would be the right thing to do."

With this particular subject out of the way, Riku goes back to sitting quietly as Tails works on his shoes diligently. After a good half-hour of work, the yellow fox casually tosses away a hammer that he had kept in hand, causing Riku to swing his body back to avoid being smacked in the face by it. Tails then turns around and holds out the teenage Overlord's shoes in his gloves, and surprisingly there wasn't anything different looking about it.

Riku naturally lets out a quiet "Huh?" as he gets up off the stool and takes his shoes from Tails' gloves, and with a confusion present across his face the yellow fox wags his right finger eagerly while going into a state of confident exposition and says "I coated your shoes in a custom-made gelatin designed to it so when you're running its like you are setting foot on empty air, removing all applicable force that you could possibly put on the ground in the process."

The teenage Overlord pinches his fingers together as well as he could without letting the shoes fall, and upon feeling a rather thin layer of substance he smiles and says in a thankful tone towards the yellow fox "Well crafted Tails, this will really help me out whenever I need to run."

Lifting himself up into the air and using his powers to put his shoes back onto his feet nice and comfortably, Riku lands back on the ground and accepts Tails' humble reply of "Glad I could help."

"Yeah, now I can race Sonic without causing any major collateral damage. It hasn't been an hour, so Sonic shouldn't be coming back ye-" As Riku points this out a rumbling sensation shakes the workshop, and seconds later the blue blur kicks the door open and grabs the attention of both the boy and Tails.

"Tails, Riku! Something exciting is happening outside, follow me to the bottom of the mountain, pronto!" Sonic exclaims with a great deal of joy in his voice before he promptly zips out of the door and leaves both Riku and Tails greatly befuddled.

The yellow fox shrugs his shoulders and says after a momentary sigh "Oh boy, this doesn't sound good if Sonic's excited about it…"

Riku nods his head in agreement and says to Tails as he begins to weave through the junk to follow the blue blur "I'll catch up with him and see what's going on. Grab some equipment just in case someone's trying to cause trouble."

The teenage Overlord then dashes out the front door and leaps into the air, flying past the mountain range on the east side and down to the grassy field below, where he finds Sonic standing still with one hand held above his eyebrows as he looks up towards the sky. Riku looks up as well and notices that the clouds have disappeared, replaced with a large, red metallic surface that is slowly moving forward through the air. The shadow cast by this surface dwarves the landscape as far as Riku can see, and its mass is so large that it shakes the ground with every second that it moves.

Sonic cocks a happy smile and says to himself unaware of Riku's presence behind him "Heh, I knew you'd show your face again sometime, Baldy McNosehair."

The teenage Overlord looks up towards the sky once the blue hedgehog says that particular nickname and notices a particular insignia coming into view on the bottom of the red metal. It was a rounded face that cracked a particularly creepy smile and had a bushy mustache, all of it painted with a pearly white coat. Riku lets out a sigh that contrasts Sonic's enthusiasm perfectly as he says "Well, so much for having a normal visit…"

The sound of a booming intercom activating heads towards the ground, followed by an all too familiar voice calling out to Sonic himself _"Mwahahahaha! Its nice to see you again my one and only true, blue nemesis! Its such a pity though that I didn't bring you a greeting card from the WHITE VOID YOU LEFT ME IN…But rest assured that I will certainly get you back for leaving me to that fate in due time, and when I do the world will know the empirical rule of the one and only DR. EGGMAN!"_

_Next Time: Black and Blue_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: The Fastest vs. The Ultimate**

Sonic gestures his right pointer finger at the sky covering metallic aircraft above him, exclaiming in a loud enough tone of voice so the nefarious Dr. Eggman could hear him "Looks like you didn't lose any bluster since I last saw you Eggman! So what's this rocking hunk of metal you are dragging around with you today?!"

"_I'm glad you asked Sonic!" _Dr. Eggman says with a jovial exclamation of enthusiasm. One could just imagine the smile on his arrogant face as he spoke from behind the microphone before he went on to explain _"Allow me to express a great deal of pride in what you see above you. This is by far my finest creation since the Death Egg Mk. II! This, my dear yet loathsome hedgehog arch nemesis, is the GREAT EGG CONTINENT!"_

The amount of bravado tossed into Eggman's proclamation of his aircraft's name echoes across the landscape, causing Sonic to cock an anticipating smile as he looks up at the ship and says to the good ol' doctor "Thinking large and in charge there aren't we Eggman?! Ok, I won't disappoint you then! I'll speed through your continent of Badniks and Egg Pawns and be back on the ground before the Chili Dog stands close!"

"_Hohoho, you won't find it to be that easy this time Sonic! In fact, I'm so certain in my victory this time that I will say right here and now that you will only be seeing the underside of my magnificent Great Egg Continent!" _Eggman boasts with a jolly laugh preceding his mighty claim.

Sonic rolls his eyes, having heard the good doctor's boasts so many times by now that a couple repeat through his head as he holds his hands on both sides of his mouth and exclaims up towards the ship "OH YEAH?! AND WHY IS THAT EGGMAN?!" The blue hedgehog's words were meant to humor his nemesis, but the response he got was not one he expected.

"_I don't know Sonic, why don't you ask one of your old companions that very question? He should be dropping in rather shortly." _The moment Eggman said those cryptic words, Sonic and Riku both looked up at the underside of the Egg Continent, where the unnatural smile on the insignia begins to slide open in both directions with an egg-shaped capsule with a complex mechanical design dropping out of it almost instantly after it opens.

The capsule is rapidly propelled towards the ground by rockets on the bottom while Sonic looks on with one eyebrow raised in an anticipated manner while Riku thinks to himself _"What did Eggman mean by 'old companion'?" _

"…_Be careful Riku, something isn't right up in that so-called 'doctor's' ship." _The black dragon Takashi mentally projects to the teenage Overlord from the blank realm he is in, and Riku nods his head and replies with _"Thanks for the heads-up, but I'll worry about that once we get there. I might need your help to take that ship down later though." _

"_Just let me know." _The black dragon states with a tone of honesty, and with their conversation at an end Riku watches as the capsule crashes into the grassy plains and cracks apart into four pieces, with the rockets flying off in random directions as a plume of dark-green dust is released across the ground.

Sonic taps his feet back and forth across the ground as he stands in place, pumping his fists in an anticipating manner in spite of Eggman's earlier comments as the dust dissipates along the ground harmlessly and a shadowed figure starts to come into view covered by a purple, foggy hue around the head area.

The blue blur flinches in surprise as he quickly recognizes the denizen of the capsule. It was a black hedgehog with red stripes on the back of the quills and red-white bands with a golden ring around the center of each one near his wrists and ankles. He wore gloves much like Sonic did, but his shoes were a little more advanced with small rocket jets at the bottom. The hedgehog looked at a little dazed as it stood in the center of the capsule's plates, with the way his eyelids were positioned over his red eyes making him look something like a zombie.

Sonic reacted with a look of utter shock on his face as he exclaimed "What?!" and pulled his body back, his hands held out beside him before he position himself back upright and says to the black hedgehog "Shadow?! What are you doing here? And why are you helping Eggman?"

The black hedgehog doesn't give an answer as he slowly lifts his head up and looks over at Sonic. Riku felt something odd about the purple fog that was surrounding Shadow's head, but it seems he wasn't alone about that. The blue hedgehog looks directly at the fog and says to the black hedgehog "Shadow, what is with that purple fog? I know I've seen that somewhere before…"

Shadow looks over at Sonic and puts on a light scowl, letting out a quiet growl in turn. Sonic then speaks to the black hedgehog in a joking tone, saying to him "Come on Shadow, I know you love the 'lone wolf' act but you usually don't ignore me for this long."

The teenage Overlord's eyelids twitch as he becomes aware of something coming from the black hedgehog. A dark sensation, one filled with hatred and anger towards Sonic. In fact, it seemed as though he intended to kill Sonic if given a chance. But Riku didn't need to point this out, for as the Egg Continent slowly began to depart Dr. Eggman stated over the radio _"Shadow! Recognize Trigger Code: 'Protect Maria'!" _

At the command of the doctor, Shadow's eyelids suddenly creak open and a furious intent pushes itself through his body. Letting out an angered roar, the black hedgehog clenches his fists tightly and exclaims towards Sonic in a deep, snarling voice "Sonic…TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF OF MARIA NOW!"

"_Sayonara, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!" _With that final arrogant proclamation meant to taunt Sonic's current condition, Eggman shuts off his microphone and turns up the power of the rockets on the back of his Egg Continent to increase the rate of which he travels through the sky.

On the ground, Sonic exclaims in a bewildered tone of voice "Maria? Shadow, have you lost your min-" but before he can finish his sentence with only one letter remaining Shadow activates the rockets on his shoes and dashes forward with a great deal of urgency, thrusting his right fist in an arced upward punch towards the bottom of the blue blur's chin.

Sonic back flips out of the way at high speeds, avoiding the punch in the nick of time and landing on the ground behind Riku. The blue blur states "Sheesh Shadow, we already did this dance recently, but this time you're out for my head? Ok then, bring it on!"

The blue hedgehog wastes no time in kicking off the ground and zipping around Riku to head towards Shadow, curling himself into a ball mid-charge to try and collide with the black hedgehog. However Shadow holds both of his hands in front of his body and catches the spinning hedgehog with his incredible strength, even though the quiet grunt coming from him suggested that he had to put up a little effort to hold Sonic back.

Shadow's body is pushed through the ground, tearing up both dirt and grass beneath his feet as he resists Sonic's spin dash long enough for the hedgehog's momentum to decrease. Having been pushed past the fragments of the egg-shaped capsule, Shadow roars and lifts Sonic high into the air, clasping his fingers tightly around his curled state to prevent him from escaping.

"To think I ever trusted you, blue hedgehog!" Shadow exclaims as he swings his arms downward and slams Sonic against the ground with enough force to crack the ground with the impact. However, now that the blue blur was freed from Shadow's grasp he quickly pushed himself out of his ball-like state and landed upright on the ground, crossing his arms just in time to block a straight-for-the-heart kick from the black hedgehog. Shadow spins his extended foot away from Sonic's arms and puts it back on the ground while positioning his right hand beside his body and scowling at the blue blur as he says "If you lay another hand on her Sonic, I will kill you where you stand!"

The blue hedgehog bluntly responds with "Shadow, Maria isn't here. How could she, she's gone." But these poorly chosen words only incited Shadow to further degrees of rage as his eyes flared wide and he charged straight at Sonic once more, holding his right hand behind his body while putting his left arm forward to check his opponent right in the gut. But Sonic zips to the left to dodge the attack, forcing the black hedgehog to activate the jets on his shoes in order to prevent himself from falling atop the ground.

As Shadow did this Sonic took notice of his right hand, which glowed a bright, sparking yellow. Recognizing the attack the black hedgehog was about to perform, the blue blur tightened his muscles and held his body forward, kicking the front of his right shoe against the ground a couple times and cocking a taunting smile towards Shadow. However, as the black hedgehog swung his hand towards Sonic and unleashed from the yellow light a series of miniature spears in anger Riku quickly dashed between both hedgehogs and used his double-helix bladed sword to quickly cut down the spears as Sonic budged an inch ready to break into a sprint.

Shadow then froze up as the boy appeared in front of him, his dazed eyes stuttering in shock as he lowers his aggression and stumbles back a couple inches. As Riku raises his eyelids in bewilderment and lets out a quiet "Huh?" Sonic stands upright and says to the boy "Geez, did you have to cut in Riku? I had this under control."

The teenage Overlord replies back with a glance over his left shoulder "…Sorry, I thought you weren't ready for Shadow's attack."

Sonic smiles and gesture outward with his right hand as he says "Heh, of course not, I know every trick in Shadow's book."

Nodding his head to show a little faith towards what Sonic had to say, Riku then turns back towards the black hedgehog, who after a moment more of freezing in place lets out a quiet stutter of "M-Maria…What are you doing?"

Riku notes the confusion and sadness in Shadow's voice, but the fact that the black hedgehog recognized him as his long-departed friend despite the obvious differences in appearance caused the boy to quietly note as he slants his sword diagonally to the left and glares towards Shadow "Whatever that purple fog is, its warping Shadow's perception of reality…But I swear I've seen it before."

As Riku and Sonic pause for a moment, we can see things from Shadow's perspective. With a purple haze surrounding his vision, the black hedgehog sees himself on a space station in a room that gives a perfect view of the blue Earth below. Standing in front of him with her right arm crossed in a concerned matter against her chest is a human girl with average-length blonde hair and pure blue eyes. She had a long skirt of white and a sleek blue shirt on. Standing behind her was Sonic, who in contrast to what was happening had a very wicked smirk on his face and shadows above his eyelids.

"_Shadow…Please stop it…This isn't right." _The girl says in a distorted yet very innocent sounding tone of voice. Shadow responds with a bewildered sounding "M-Maria…What are you saying?"

Sonic sneers at the black hedgehog, saying to him in an overly cocky tone of voice _"She's saying she doesn't care for you anymore Shadow. She wants to be with me now! I'll give her the freedom to live on the Earth, something you could NEVER do for her even in a million years!" _

"Sonic, you'd dare take Maria away from me?!" Shadow says in an exclamation of raw anger towards the blue blur as he stands behind the human girl and smirks arrogantly with his arms folded in front of his chest.

"_I don't see why I shouldn't. Face it Shadow, how can you relate to her anyways? After all, you're an ALIEN." _The false words spoken by this Sonic resonate within Shadow's head, causing him to tightly clench his fists as his aggression begins to return.

"_Face it Shadow, you can't do anything-" _"-Shadow, hey Shadow! You coming back to your senses there?" With a seamless transition from Shadow's point of view to reality, we find Sonic gesturing towards the black hedgehog, who has stood absolutely still this entire time.

The blue hedgehog shrugs while Riku keeps up his defensive stance, which was a good move seeing how the battle was just about to begin anew. With a snap of his fingers, Shadow exclaims towards the blue blur "CHAOS CONTROL!"

In an instant, both time and space warp around the black hedgehog, making him vanish out of sight and causing Riku to flinch in a panic seeing as he no longer was able to get a peg on where Shadow was. Sonic on the other hand is forced to become more aware of his surroundings by Shadow's sudden move, which ended with him reappearing beside the blue blur and attempting to kick him in the side of his head.

The attack connects, sending Sonic spiraling away from where he once stood. The hedgehog smacks against the ground a few times in rapid succession before he regains his composure and lands on his feet, skidding along the ground and looking forward with an overjoyed smile on his face now that Shadow was back in the fight, even if it was still puzzling as to why he was even attacking in the first place.

Shadow lands on the ground and takes a couple unflinching steps forward with his hands extended out on both sides of his body. Creating distorted yellow lights in each palm, the black hedgehog leaps into the air and collides them together to create a static field of energy from which he is able to fire multiple spears at Sonic while hovering in mid-air with his shoes. Sonic wastes little time in sprinting forth, zipping left and right across the ground to dodge the spears flying at him until he's close enough to Shadow to leap at him.

Curling up into a ball mid-flight, Sonic dives right through Shadow's yellow energy orb and hits him square in the hands. The blow applies enough force that the black hedgehog is knocked out of his hovering stance and sent towards the ground. The recoil from the attack allows Sonic to fly backwards and land on the ground in a standing pose while Shadow lies on his back. The blue hedgehog kicks his right foot against the ground and readies his fists, saying to the black hedgehog "I'm going to eventually knock SOME sense back into you Shadow."

Shadow pushes himself back onto his feet and glares at Sonic, saying to him angrily as a scowl still crosses his face "Shut UP. I won't let you lay another hand on Maria!"

Sonic places his foot against the ground and smirks at Shadow, saying to him "Fine then, lets kick it up a notch, shall we?"

As the black hedgehog snaps his fingers and Sonic concentrates deeply on an unknown force, both figures exclaim the words "CHAOS CONTROL!" at the exact same time and vanish in a near instance afterwards.

With both hedgehogs now fighting outside the boundaries of time and space via the effects of Chaos Control, Riku can only tell what was going on from the distance thanks to the bursts of energy coming from the sky around him that signified a collision of attacks between both forces. A rapid string of bursts going in a downward slope signifies a series of kicks, and a larger burst signifies a strong clash between both forces.

Riku wanted to get involved with the battle, but without a single clue as to where Sonic was positioned he couldn't launch a single attack. Thus the teenage Overlord holds his sword at the side of his body and waits for a chance to strike.

From the view point of the blue hedgehog at that very moment, he was currently in the middle of the air with everything around him going slower than normal. He was diving at Shadow with his right foot out, but the black hedgehog puts up his arms to guard the attack. As Sonic leaps back from the recoil of the kick Shadow holds his right arm beside him and creates a large spear of yellow energy that he quickly tosses at the blue hedgehog while he was incapable of swerving away.

"Whoa!" Sonic exclaims in surprise as he quickly leans his head back and watches as the tip of the spear grazes the bottom of his chin. The blue hedgehog then pushes the weight of his feet upward to spin around and position himself downward so he could land on the ground with ease. But the blue blur zips forward immediately after landing and goes into a slide kick along the grass, his foot making contact and allowing him to trip Shadow up and force the black hedgehog onto his face.

Sonic then slams his right hand against the ground to kill his remaining momentum, performing a tough break dance maneuver that allows him to flip back onto his feet. While Shadow was knocked on the ground, the blue blur glances behind him and sees Riku slowly moving in place. As he was briefly distracted by making sure that there was no collateral damage to his new acquaintance, Shadow got back up and turned to face him with his right glove glowing bright with yellow energy.

"Don't you turn your back on me, Sonic!" Shadow exclaims as he holds his right hand beside his head and swings it outright, tossing a bombardment of spears in a wide spread in an attempt to force Sonic to take one hit. The blue blur focuses back on his opponent and quickly leaps backwards over a couple of the fast-moving spears, landing on the ground immediately afterwards and flinching as he notices where a couple of the spears were heading.

Quickly zipping backwards towards Riku, Sonic breaks his concentration on the force that allows him to perform Chaos Control and returns into view at the same time as Shadow. The teenage Overlord catches the spears coming at him, but with how close they were at the moment not even with his quick reflexes would he be able to deal with them. Sonic, knowing nothing about the teenage Overlord's durability, curls into a ball and leaps up, ramming right into Riku to knock him out of the way of the attack.

Shadow once again freezes in shock, but this time his hand wobbles in place as he stares in disbelief where Riku once stood. "M-Maria?" He states in a tone of disbelieving sadness. Once again we see things from the black hedgehog's point of view, and he sees Maria pushed to the ground by Sonic. The blue blur gets on his feet and arrogantly smirks at Shadow, saying to him in a cocky tone _"Look at what you allowed Shadow. You tried to harm Maria because you can't accept that she doesn't want you anymore. Give it a rest you alien freak."_

As the black hedgehog scowls at Sonic in reality, the blue blur extends his hand and helps Riku onto his feet, saying in a quickly spoken yet apologetic tone "Sorry about the roughness, couldn't risk getting hit."

The teenage Overlord states in a thankful tone "Its my fault for not being able to keep up with your actions…But shouldn't you be focusing on Shadow instead of apologizing?"

Sonic gestures with his thumb towards the black hedgehog and says in a casual tone "Eh, he's having another episode, we're fine for now."

"SONIC!" A more gentle yet concerned sounding voice echoes through the sky via a mega phone, and both heroes look up to see Tails flying above in a red bi-plane of his own creation with the aforementioned mega phone in his right hand. The yellow fox, with his plane on auto-pilot for the time being, stands up in the cockpit of his plane and jabs down at Shadow, exclaiming to Sonic through the mega phone "Shadow's under Eggman's control!"

The blue blur replies to Tails with a sarcastic "Ummm…Yeah Tails! We kind of already figured that out!"

Shaking his head with an annoyed sigh, Tails goes on to mention "No Sonic, you don't understand! Shadow's being controlled by Nega Hyper-go-on energy!"

Sonic scratches the side of his head while Riku reacts with surprised realization, and the blue hedgehog says "Ummm…Nega hyper-whatzit now?" in a forgetful sounding tone of voice.

"Remember when Eggman built that amusement park and captured those Wisps and transforming them into those horrifying creatures?!" Tails exclaims after momentarily slapping the front of his face and sighing.

Sonic then snaps his fingers and looks up at Tails, saying to him "Oh yeah! What about it?!"

"Don't you recall that he used a strange purple energy on me to try and get me to fight you?" Tails says afterwards, and with quick thinking the blue blur picks up what his friend his trying to say and states "Oh yeah, that weird shining energy with the squiggly beam design. Huh, now that I think about it I'm surprised Egghead never used that on you again afterwards."

The yellow fox bluntly responds with "Sonic, now isn't the time to worry about that! Shadow has to be controlled by that Nega Hyper-go-on energy!"

Sonic then snaps his fingers in annoyance and looks towards Shadow, saying to himself "Darn it, good ol' Egghead must have whipped up a new formula to make that energy last longer."

With a slight hint of distraught on the blue blur's face before he whips out a coy smile and swings his right hand out towards the still motionless black hedgehog, Sonic blurts out "Guess I have no choice then Shadow. I'll free you from Eggman's control by knocking you unconscious!"

The black hedgehog's eyes could not be seen at that moment as his head hung low and the purple fog started to gain a faint yellow glow to it for some odd reason. From Shadow's point of view, he hears a GUN Soldier in the distance saying _"Freeze, all of you! Don't move or I'll shoot!" _The cocking of a gun could be heard coming from the soldier, and the person he was pointing towards was obvious.

"No…This isn't going to happen again…" Shadow mumbles to himself as the rings on his bands let out a brief glow and begin to pop off one after the other. Riku suddenly detects a massive spike in the black hedgehog's power and quickly readies his sword, putting on an all too serious expression as Shadow tightly clenches his fists and rises up into the air thanks to a powerful capsule of untamed yellow energy that pushes outward around his body.

"Huh?! Shadow's pulling this out on us?!" Sonic exclaims in a completely unnerved tone of shock in his voice as he widens his eyes and looks at Shadow, keeping his feet as planted into the ground as possible as the pressure exuding from the black hedgehog threatens to push him back.

The teenage Overlord takes a glance over at Sonic and quickly thought to himself _"I didn't think Shadow would go this far…If Sonic's worrying, then he probably doesn't have the Chaos Emeralds on him…"_

Walking in front of the blue blur calmly, Riku draws his sword towards Shadow much to Sonic's surprise and says "Stand back Sonic, I'll handle Shadow."

Sonic, in the midst of his surprise, nonetheless kept his cocky attitude up and said to the boy "Heh, you sure you can handle this?"

Riku turns and gives him a light smile, saying in a nonchalant tone of voice "All I have to do is knock him unconscious right? Just give me a minute or two, that's usually how long your fights last after all…"

The teenage Overlord turns to face the angered Shadow as the energy exuding around him now emerges in timed waves, and with a quick draw of his sword in front of his body the boy launches a tornado of wind towards the black hedgehog.

Before Shadow could land and attack, the tornado wraps around his body and keeps him and energy trapped inside. Riku then dashes across the ground and flips around after getting underneath the rising tornado, leaping into the air with his sword drawn high as he coats it in a non-lethal veil of ice and attempts to slash down upon Shadow. But with a clench of his fists the black hedgehog bursts out of the tornado and then immediately activates Chaos Control to warp behind the boy.

Thinking quickly to himself as he turns around _"I guess he doesn't see me as Maria anymore…" _Riku meets Shadow's aggressive mid-air karate chop with his ice covered sword, only to be surprised as the ice shatters apart in an instant. But with the black hedgehog stuck in place thanks to his attack the teenage Overlord quickly dispels his sword and takes his left hand forward, summoning a ball of fire in the palm and slamming it against Shadow's body.

With the energy barrier keeping Shadow protected diluting most of the damage from the attack, the black hedgehog is launched back through the air, where he lands against the ground back first with his chest fur smoking a bit. Riku wastes no time in summoning forth four fortified stalagmites from the ground around Shadow to keep him trapped inside, but unsurprisingly the energy exuding around the hedgehog atomizes the rocks once he regains consciousness.

But Riku was a little prepared for this as he swung his right pointer finger down to send a bolt of raw electricity at Shadow from the blank sky. Struck with a million volts of electricity, even the black hedgehog felt a lot of pain running through his body as he widened his eyes and screamed in agony. But from his point of view, he saw something far different than what was actually happening as usual.

The pain distorted his vision of the world, making him see him strapped to a table as he was electrocuted mercilessly. And the one who was responsible? Maria herself, who wore an all-too innocent smile on her face that made the ordeal all the more painful for Shadow. But it was at this point that the black hedgehog began to suspect that something was up. "No…No…Maria would never do this…This isn't real…"

The purple fog surrounding Shadow's head begins to fade away as he starts to realize that what was happening before him was fake, and with it the yellow energy surrounding him also starts to die out. Noticing this, Riku lets up on his lightning attack and smiles triumphantly. With smoke covering Shadow's body thanks to his last attack, Riku has to edge closer to check and see that he didn't harm the black hedgehog too much. As he approaches however he senses another worrying spike of power coming from Shadow and a reddish glow emerging from within the smoke.

Shadow begins to walk out of the smoke, a pale red veil covering his entire body as his eyes have gone white and a scowl has crossed his face. He looked up towards and states in an absolutely furious tone of voice "I am Shadow the Hedgehog! I may have put the past behind me, but that doesn't give ANYONE the right to try and use it against me for their own nefarious ends! For your attempt to control my mind with those horrifically realistic visions, I will personally show you JUST WHO I AM!"

The black hedgehog warps in front of Riku with Chaos Control and immediately tosses out a hard-hitting punch with all of his anger poured into it. The teenage Overlord takes the blow directly into the side of his face, which manages to crack a couple of bones his mouth as he is also pushed back along the air. Hovering forward with his jet shoes, Shadow rapidly throws blow after blow against the teenage Overlord, battering his body around in mid-air for a good couple seconds before rising up and combining his hands together and striking the boy hard enough to launch him diagonally into the ground.

The impact doesn't hurt as much as the combined pain brought on by the punches, but Riku was still feeling rather battered as he stared up at Shadow's glowing red body and noticed as the black hedgehog swung his right hand in front of his body and the entire grassy plain began to quake. But as Shadow started off the name of his attack with an exclamation of "CHAOS-" Sonic quickly dashed in-between the black hedgehog and Riku's fallen body, which causes Shadow to take pause for a moment in confusion.

"Out of the way!" Shadow exclaims as his only warning to the blue hedgehog, but Sonic stands defiantly in front of his recovered ally and bluntly says to him "Chill out Shadow! You aren't being controlled anymore!"

Shadow goes on to say "I'm well aware of that, but now I am going to kill the one who helped the doctor put me in this state!"

Sonic exclaims to Shadow in confusion "What?! Riku here helped break you free from Egghead's control, he's not your enemy Shadow! Now get a grip before you blow this whole area sky high!"

Shadow pauses for a moment and looks down at both Sonic and the fallen boy, noticing that the boy in particular isn't putting up a resistance despite his current condition. After considering the situation for a few seconds, Shadow slowly lowers his hand and calms down, his body returning back to normal as he descends towards the ground and immediately falls on top of one knee, his right hand going towards his head as he lets out a groan of pain and murmurs to himself "What did the doctor do to me…"

As Riku pulls himself onto his feet now that the battle was done with, Sonic quickly rushed to Shadow's aid and said in his usual happy-go-lucky voice "Glad to have you back to normal Shadow."

The blue hedgehog then extended his hand out to try and help him up, but with an annoyed glance towards Sonic's way Shadow takes his other hand and brushes his help off before rising to his feet in spite of the pain in his head. The black hedgehog then grimaces and says to Sonic "…I don't usually say this, but its good to know you're the real Sonic."

"Heh, well of course Shadow, there's always only going to be one real Sonic out there." The blue hedgehog jokingly states as he wags his right pointer finger in mid-air and smiles.

Shadow shakes his head as the pain continues to simmer down, and he proceeds to mention to the blue hedgehog "…Whatever the doctor did to me, it made me believe that you were putting Maria in danger. I know she's long gone…But what I saw and heard felt far too real for me to even begin doubting what I was seeing."

Riku walks over near the end of Shadow's sentence and says to him "You were being controlled by Eggman's Nega Hyper-go-on energy compound…Going by what Tails and Sonic were saying, he must have modified the compound so you'd turn against Sonic without a single bit of doubt."

The black hedgehog looks up at the human boy and says in a puzzled tone of voice "…And just who are you?"

Riku pauses for a moment before flinching and realizing that he hadn't actually introduced himself to Shadow yet. Folding his arms against his chest, the teenage Overlord says "My name is Riku. As much as I'd like to get further into who I am, we probably should go deal with Eggman now, right Sonic?"

As Riku turns towards the blue hedgehog at the end of his inquiry, Sonic snaps his fingers and says enthusiastically while Tails descends in his bi-plane beside him "Yeah! I don't know what Eggman's up to this time, but if he's using some weird mind control mojo then we need to stop him before he can use it again!"

The yellow fox says to his blue friend "Then hop aboard you two. With how slow Eggman's hunk of metal is going, we should be able to catch up with it faster than you can 'untrimmed nose hair'!"

Sonic leaps onto the left wing of Tails' bi-plane without hesitation, but Riku kindly says to the fox "Don't worry about me, I can fly up there on my own."

As the teenage Overlord kicks off the ground and hovers in the air waiting for the bi-plane to take off, Shadow quickly interjects and says to all three heroes "Hold on there. I'm coming with you."

Sonic looks over at Shadow and says to him in a taunting manner "You sure you can handle this Shadow? We did rough you up pretty well."

The black hedgehog jumps on the right wing of the bi-plane without hesitation and turns his head towards Sonic, saying to him as he folds his arms in front of his body "I need to find out just why the doctor went this far. I will be just fine."

The blue hedgehog nods his head and then gestures towards Tails, saying to him quickly "Alright buddy, lets go crack some egg!"

With the engines already ready to go, Tails sends the bi-plane flying into the air while Riku follows close behind. At the slow rate the Egg Continent was going, it wasn't going to take very long for the heroes to catch up with it and confront Dr. Eggman…

_Next Time: Tougher than Leather_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Onboard the Egg Continent**

With Tails in control of his bi-plane the Tornado Mk. III, the group of heroes consisting of the yellow fox himself, Sonic, Shadow and Riku climb through the sky at a gentle pace alongside the latest of Eggman's massive battleship, the Egg Continent. The ship is so large in fact that the heroes have to rise up through the clouds before they can bypass the sides of the ship and hit the main section.

Riku flew beside the bi-plane and took at look at the very heavy metal plating on the sides of the ship, and with a concerned look in his eyes he thought to the dragons of light and darkness that inhabited another realm _"Sodenko, Takashi, do you think you can handle this type of ship if need be?"_

"_I could, but it wouldn't be easy." _The black dragon replies in a very swift yet blunt tone of voice, and he proceeds to ask afterwards _"Say, shouldn't you tell the hedgehogs and the fox about us?"_

The teenage Overlord shook his head out of view of the three other heroes, saying to the black dragon afterwards _"If you can't help with the battleship, I don't think it'll be necessary to tell them about you…Sodenko, are you ever going to speak to me again?"_

"_Have you changed your mind about keeping me bound to this accursed chain?" _The dragon of light replies in a serene yet alluring tone of voice meant to try and earn the teenage Overlord's favor.

However, Riku is not fooled and he quickly insists to the dragon _"I'm not going to budge until you show some genuine regret." _

"_Then my answer to your earlier question is no, I cannot deal with this supposed doctor's massive battleship." _Sodenko replies with a tiny hint of deception in her voice.

The teenage Overlord lets out a tiny sigh and interprets Sodenko's words as though she WOULD be able to deal with the ship, but simply refused to do so when there was nothing to gain on her part. However, because a sigh was vocal enough thanks to how quiet the engines of the Tornado were, Sonic spoke up towards Riku as the boy ended up flying off to the left of the ship. "Getting a little anxious there?"

Riku looks at the blue hedgehog as the Tornado swerves to the left and heads towards the sky above the Egg Continent, saying to him in a confident sounding tone of voice "Nah, I'm not too worried at the moment. You?"

Sonic smirks and alternates thrusting his fists back and forth against the air, saying in response to Riku's question "You kidding? I can't wait to get this party started."

The teenage Overlord points out in a joking sort of voice "It kind of did start already when we fought Shadow."

Sonic responds in a fully joking tone of voice as he gestures towards the boy "Heh, Shadow was more like the appetizer you have before a party."

The black hedgehog, who was within earshot of the blue blur, glanced at him in an annoyed fashion and said in response to his comment "Sonic, the least you could do for me is take this matter seriously."

The blue blur glances back over at Shadow and says to him with a light smile "Oh lighten up Shadow. Its not like I've never needed to be serious to stop the ol' Egghead before, right?"

Shadow sighs deeply and looks back forward, and Sonic quickly turns back to face Riku and says to him after a short laugh "Hehe, I'm glad Shadow's back to his regularly serious self."

After this short little conversation, the Tornado has finally made it past the sides of the Egg Continent, and its there that they are able to get a good look at the armaments that Eggman has assembled across the gargantuan surface. Hundreds upon hundreds of gigantic turrets line the rim of the battleship, the thin barrels of the weaponry suggesting that they fire lasers instead of missiles. The turrets are protected by fields of electricity, meaning attacking them from the bi-plane would be a bad idea.

The vast majority of the Egg Continent was unsurprisingly covered in machinery that not only worked to keep the place afloat, but also formed a series of buildings that acted as a city for this massive ship. At the front end of this ship was something that surprised Tails and Shadow while also exciting Sonic. Rebuilt almost perfectly into the Egg Continent was the Final Fortress, a shark-shaped battleship that acted as the head of Eggman's Egg Fleet quite some time ago. At the very end of the Final Fortress was a wide pillar that supported a large circular platform and a rectangular tower with a face at the top that unsurprisingly looked like Eggman's.

Looking down across this lengthy battleship, Tails only notices one platform that he would be able to land on quickly before the turrets would have a chance to take aim at his Tornado. Eggman was clearly expecting him to land on there though, since he sloppily painted the center of it with the twin-tailed insignia on the side of the bi-plane. Dully slanting his eyelids and sighing at what the doctor had done, the yellow fox turned to face Riku and gestured down at the platform, proceeding to descend down upon it after a slight turn.

Sonic and Shadow kneel down and grasp the front of the Tornado's wings so they don't fall off, and the black hedgehog takes a moment to glance at the Final Fortress. He thinks to himself as he glares at the tower at the end of it _"Enjoy your safety while you can, doctor."_

Tails lands the Tornado swiftly upon the platform, and when they were stable Sonic and Shadow jump off the wings while Riku falls down and lands in front of the bi-plane. The yellow fox spends a good few seconds shutting down his plane before he joins the rest of the heroes at the front of the platform as they look towards the large city up ahead along with others. There were no visible pathways up ahead that would take the heroes to the city or the Final Fortress past it.

"Sheesh, Eggman sure went all out on this ship! All its missing is the freaky lightning skies and a giant holographic projection of his largeness." Sonic says in a very enthusiastic tone of voice as he folds his arms behind his head and glances left to right across the ship.

On cue, a giant holographic projection of his larg-Err, of Dr. Eggman appears in the air between the platform and the large city in the distance. Shadow immediately thrusts himself into an aggressive stance as he swings his right arm out and exclaims to Eggman "Doctor, you will pay for what you have done to me!" Wasting little time in getting straight to the point as he did so.

However, Eggman merely ignored the black hedgehog for the time being and raised his arms into the air, laughing jollily like he always does in the face of his eternal nemesis Sonic before going on to say in a hospitable tone of voice "Welcome to my Egg Continent Sonic and Tails…I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you both made it here. After all, it wouldn't be any fun for either of us if you succumbed to the first enemy I tossed at you."

Sonic happily gestures at the doctor while saying to him "Heh, you know me too well Eggman. So what you gonna send at me now? Badniks? Egg Pawns? A one-way road to spikes and bottomless pits? Come on, surprise me with your best shot!"

"Oh, I will most certainly 'surprise' you, my dear dear nemesis. But this surprise will be gift-wrapped without any return address or postage!" Eggman matches Sonic's jokes with an attempt at humor of his own, but the blue hedgehog merely shrugs at it and says to him while closing his eyelids halfway "Come on Egghead, that was rather lame."

Before Eggman can start talking again, Shadow flings out a Chaos Spear at the hologram with a great deal of anger thrown into his swing. The hologram distorts, but this move managed to grab Eggman's attention all the same. Glancing down with grumbling hesitation, Eggman asks "What do you want Shadow?"

Shadow then clenches his right fist as the yellow energy within fizzles out, looking up at the mad scientist as the remaining heroes focus on him while he says "Come down with your strongest machine, and I will take great pleasure in tearing both it and you apart for what you did to me!"

Eggman nudges his glasses upward with a nonchalant gesture of his right hand, putting them in such a position that they gleam white as he creepily grins and says to the black hedgehog from the safety of his projector "Unfortunately for you, my strongest machine isn't quite yet complete, and even if it was I have no intention on wasting it on a bit-player such as you."

The black hedgehog responds angrily with "Smile all you want doctor, but no matter where you hide on this ship I WILL find you."

"Empty threats, I assure you." Eggman sees in an overly confident tone of voice as he lowers his hand from the front of his face and looks down upon the black hedgehog, saying to him and the rest of the heroes not long afterwards "But here is a threat that isn't quite so empty."

Gesturing towards the front of his clothing ensemble, Eggman presses down on a button swiftly and immediately every single turret along the rim of the Egg Continent aimed at the heroes, some of them even rising up to not cross in the paths of the others. The cannons cocked downward with the central areas glowing a bright red, and Riku quickly draws his sword in a panic while Shadow makes his hands glow yellow just in case he'd need to fight back with Chaos Spears.

However, Sonic keeps his cool after an initial moment of surprise and gestures towards Eggman, saying in a jovial tone "Heh, so what type of gaming we playing here Eggman?"

"The 'game' is simple, Sonic." Eggman responds with before snapping his fingers beside him. The turrets then raise their cannons towards the sky and fire off lasers simultaneously, creating a perfectly sized cage around the Egg Continent that didn't leave a single gap wide enough for the Tornado to slip through. The doctor then continues off from the end of his last sentence by saying "You four are now trapped on my Egg Continent."

Riku glances around at the many laser cannons the good doctor had assembled on-board the Egg Continent, noticing from his position with the help of his powers that they were all connected to a singular energy source underneath the surface of the battleship. _"Is this really supposed to be a threat?" _The boy asks himself as he turns around enough for him to glance at Eggman to gauge what was going on.

Tails is quick to point out to the doctor in a coy tone of voice "Oh please Eggman, your laser defense system would be easy for me to disable from right here. This is a low-grade threat, even for you."

Eggman just as quickly responds with a creepy laugh as he smile and says to his foxy rival "Oh, are you sure about that Tails? If you try to disable even ONE of my turrets, you'll trip the detonation switch for my nuclear generator and blow the Egg Continent apart, killing everyone on-board and spreading radiation across the entire planet."

This bit of information makes all the heroes flinch in differing manners, with Riku thinking to himself as he grits his teeth _"Has Eggman lost his mind?! He put a bomb in his own ship when he's on it?!"_

Eggman then goes on to mention with a cocky waggle of his right pointer finger "Oh, and don't even think about having the element manipulator disable the electric flow to the generator. If the electricity is cut-off from even one of the turrets, the turrets have been programmed to self-destruct, which will take out the middle of the Egg Continent and cause the bottom half to drop down wherever we may be. I'm sure you don't want to put the humans in any danger, right Sonic?"

The blue hedgehog takes a pause for a moment, his smile deflating as he looks up at Eggman and says to him "Huh, so you really are taking things seriously, aren't you? You've become a big-time villain yet again Eggman."

The doctor swiftly replies with a docile yet serious sounding "I have always been serious you pesky blue hedgehog, but after failing to defeat you even with the help of my past-self I am no longer willing to take any chances. So long as you are aboard my Egg Continent, you and your friends will do everything I say, and if you disobey even a single step I WILL activate the charges myself and blow this ship sky-high! Do. I. Make. Myself. CLEAR?!"

Before Sonic answers the doctor, Riku dispels his sword and faces the hologram, saying in a blunt tone of voice "You're just putting your own life in danger by having the bomb on here. That doesn't sound like you at all."

Eggman nonchalantly mentions "Who even said I was on this ship? I could have just led all of you into an inescapable trap while I keep working on my ultimate machine from another place!"

"That's not your style Eggman." Sonic replies quickly with a smile on his face as he wags one finger towards the hologram of the good doctor.

The doctor drops the nonchalant act and looks at his long-time foe with joy, saying to him happily "You know me too well Sonic. I guess years of conflict will do that to two people. But either way, I am looking forward to confronting you with my ultimate machine."

The blue hedgehog says to Eggman "Well first we actually need a way through your silly little continent Eggman. So come on, cough up a pathway or something for us."

Eggman whips out a serious tone of voice yet again as he says to the blue hedgehog "Uh uh uh. I'm the rule maker here, remember? Your snappy remarks aren't going to get you anywhere this time, hedgehog."

Sonic raises his hands in annoyance and puts on a rather impatient expression, saying to the doctor in response to his attempt at imposing control "Whatever! Just hurry up already, I'm getting bored standing around here flapping my mouth off to a hologram!"

"Fair enough." Eggman says as he follows through with a gesture towards his foes. The good doctor then reaches for a button on the side of his sleeve, tapping it quickly to summon forth a spinning platform in front of the heroes that is big enough to fit one person.

"First things first, we are going to separate your little party up. I want Shadow to board this platform that I have summoned. If you do not agree to this, then-" Before Eggman finishes, Shadow has already boarded the platform, which surprises both Sonic and Tails.

"Sheesh, you're really gonna go through with this?" Sonic asks the black hedgehog, who proceeds to face his more heroic counterpart and state with his arms folded against his chest fur "I won't be slowed down as much if I don't have you three holding me back with your laid-back attitudes."

The blue blur doesn't take offense to what Shadow said and leaves him with a quick smirk before the black hedgehog turns to face the hologram and says stoically to him "Doctor, if you would."

With another tap of the button on the sleeve of his ensemble, Eggman has the platform Shadow is on carried away from the other three heroes. The black hedgehog is carried towards the doctor's man-made city in the distance, and once he was out of view Eggman directed his attention back at the remainder of his opposition and said to the unknown boy in front of him "Now then, I do believe you are capable of flying on your own you unknown little interloper. So if you'd kindly make your way to the bottom left building up ahead I'll be sure to greet you with a little robot of mine."

"Fine by me." Riku says as he wastes little to no time in leaping off the ground and levitating in place as Sonic turns to face the boy and says to him quietly "Hey, don't go losing to ol' Egghead out there, ok?"

The teenage Overlord nods his head and cracks a gentle smile, saying to him "Same to you, though I don't think that's something I need to doubt." Sonic gives the boy a lighthearted thumbs-up, and after Riku does the same he flies off quickly in the direction of the building that Eggman wanted him to go to.

Tails then turns to face the blue blur and says to him as he gestures both his hands out in front of his body "Well Sonic, looks like its just you, me, and Eggman's big fat hologram now."

Sonic jokingly says to his friend as he taps the side of his head with his right hand "Like that's any different from our last couple of adventures…Minus the fat Eggman hologram part and the freaky laser show keeping us here anyways."

"I can hear you both you know." Eggman states to drag the hedgehog and fox's attention back towards him. Sonic sways his right hand at him and says in response "Yeah we know, but don't you think you've been around long enough by now Eggman?"

The doctor smiles and says to the two heroes "Fine, if you are so tired of my glorious presence, then perhaps its time you had someone else around to entertain you both. Have fun, Sonic and Tails!"

With the hologram zipping out of view in a near instance, the platform the two heroes are on jolts in place as two large metallic rings rise up and connect around the edge of the platform to increase its size exponentially. Sonic quickly comments "Oh hey, Eggman is assembling a battle arena for my next opponent! How nice of him."

Tails, with a worried look in his eyes, turns to look at Sonic and says to him "Sonic, I've been thinking about it a bit since you fought Shadow and well…I think it's entirely possible that Shadow won't be the only one of our friends that Eggman put under the control of the Nega Hyper-go-on energy."

Sonic, who was focused mostly on the expanding platform as each subsequent part clicked into place, said to his buddy in a slightly more serious tone of voice "You think so Tails? Well, we'll just have to beat whoever we fight into unconciousness to free them, won't we? …Unless of course you happened to drag along a stun cannon of some sorts."

The yellow fox sarcastically replies with "Yes Sonic, after seeing Eggman's giant battleship and rushing to get the Tornado running while also seeing you fight Shadow not long afterwards, I managed to rush right back to my workshop in the five free seconds I could have had to grab my stun cannon. Thank you for thinking about how impossible that sounds." As he spoke though, he had a light smile on his face, signifying that he didn't take much offense to that.

Sonic jokingly states "Heh, you could have just said no. Oh well, the hard way it is then." The blue hedgehog then does some stretches while he waits for Eggman to drop his opponent.

A few seconds later, an egg capsule descends from overhead and crash lands behind the Tornado. This time however, the figure inside leaps out of the green smoke and lands on the right wing of Tail's bi-plane. Sonic lets out an unsurprised sigh while Tails plants his right hand against his face upon seeing who their opponent it. It was the red dreadlock haired echidna that was the famed guardian of the Master Emerald on Angel Island, Knuckles. Like with Shadow, Knuckles had a cloud of purple fog around his head and a glare that made him look like a zombie.

"You know, I'm not surprised that Knuckles got captured by Eggman." Tails says after letting out a light sigh. Sonic responds to his friend's remark with a snappy "We could have put a wager on it if we had more time, honestly."

The blue hedgehog then faces his red echidna friend and says to him in a taunting manner "Alright Knuckles, what did Eggman put in your mind to get you angry at me?"

The red echidna scowls at Sonic and promptly raises his right, spiked glove into the air, roaring loudly as he brings it right down into the center of the Tornado's structure. With the amount of force applied into his blow, Knuckles manages to cause the bi-plane to explode instantly, the pieces of it scattering across the platform as the durable echidna lands on the ground in the center of the burning wreckage. Knuckles then faces both Sonic and Tails, saying in a very frustrated and hot-blooded tone of voice as he pounds his fists together twice "Darn it Sonic, I can't believe you would take the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald to try to take over the world!"

Sonic slaps his forehead and groans, saying as he pulls his hand away and shrugs his shoulders "Really Eggman, you went with something that simplistic? Oh well, I guess that's all that was needed for ol' Knucklehead. So Tails, you ready to help free Knuckles?"

The blue hedgehog presses his fingers together to crack his knuckles in front of his body while turning to look at his buddy, only to find that Tails' mouth is partially agape while his left eyelid twitches uncontrollably. "T-That was my finest version of the Tornado yet…" His voice was filled with distraught, which transforms into a fit of anger as he clenches his fists tightly and exclaims towards Knuckles "Knuckles you idiot! I don't care if you are under Eggman's control! When Sonic and I are through with you, YOU ARE GOING TO REBUILD MY TORNADO FROM SCRATCH WITHOUT MY ASSISTANCE!"

Tails reaches into a hyperspace compartment he had built into the back of his fur and pulls out a circular red arm cannon that he attaches to his right arm, while Sonic merely lets out an impressed whistle and looks back at Knuckles, saying with a gesture towards him "Geez Knuckles, you really blew it this time. Oh well, if Tails is this motivated, then I am too! Lets do this Knuckles!" Pumping his fists into the air, Sonic was ready for battle against his red echidna friend.

_Next Time: Team Sonic Collision_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Knuckles the Echidna**

In a far-off room inside of the Egg Continent, the rotund Dr. Eggman can be seen with a blowtorch and a large chunk of red metal in front of him. He is working on binding an obscured object into the red metal, and the sparks barely give an idea as to what said object is. As he works on this ultimate machine he looks off to the left at a set of monitors he set up to observe the forces that have gathered on his mighty battleship. With Shadow on a platform and the mysterious boy flying towards one of his many buildings all that left was Sonic and Tails, who were beginning their fight with the mind controlled Knuckles.

"Like that will be too difficult for them…" Eggman says with little doubt in the abilities of his long-time foe. But the purpose of the battle was not to secure Sonic's defeat, but to stall the hedgehog long enough for the doctor to finish his work here today. Eggman quickly taps a button on the cuff of his right sleeve to switch one of the blank screens over to look at Cubot and Orbot through the eyes of Metal Sonic. With a voice box installed into the mouth of the metallic hedgehog, Eggman says through the mic attached to his collar "You two better be working hard on Project !"

Orbot flinches and quickly turns towards his observing mechanical counterpart, and as he holds his wrench behind his head he says to the doctor "Yes yes, we are working as hard as possible over here. But I will say that you should reconsider the name of-"

"I don't want to hear any lip from you Orbot." Eggman interrupts in a very firm tone of voice as he glares at the orbed robot on the other side of the monitor. "You likely have thirty minutes to an hour to complete this before Sonic reaches your location."

Orbot opens his metallic eyelids up wide and stutters out "T-That short of a time? But doctor, wasn't this whole grandiose plan of yours meant to permanently defeat Sonic? Why should this creation of yours even be necessary in that case?"

"What did I JUST say?" Eggman slowly growls towards the inquiring Orbot.

The orbed robot sighs and says to his master "Fine, fine…We'll try and work through the difficulties presented to us in order to get the job done. Then you'll get Metal Sonic off our backs, right?"

"Of course. Metal Sonic has his own job to do later on." Eggman states as he turns back towards his great machine and puts the blowtorch to it, only to realize something odd in what Orbot was saying and he quickly glances at the robot on the monitor and says to him in a pressing tone of voice "What do you mean by 'difficulties'?"

Cubot quickly turns to Orbot on the monitor while scratching the back of his head as he says in a blatantly pirate-y tone of voice "Yarr Orbot, is ye wires supposed to be set with such a glow of fire?"

Orbot, after briefly glancing at Cubot to hear him out, faces Metal Sonic and giggles in an embarrassed tone, while Eggman lets out an annoyed sigh as he slowly rubs the front of his face with his soot covered left glove. The doctor then shuts off the monitor before he can see anymore from the two screw-ups, proceeding to change the channel of his microphone so he can speak to another person.

"How is it going on your end? Yes, I see you masterfully diverted their group up into three, just as I would expect from someone of your brilliance." Eggman looks at the monitor with the mysterious boy on it and proceeds to say as he narrows his eyes "I don't like that boy's presence here. This is outside my normal experiences, but I think it would be wise to test his capabilities. Send one of my mechs his way, but proceed with everything else as planned. Eggman out."

Back at the landing zone, the red echidna Knuckles stands in the middle of the burning wreckage of Tails' Tornado Mk. III, barely affected by the fire around him as he punches his fists together ready to brawl with his two friends thanks to the Nega Hyper-go-on energy that was controlling his mind. The yellow fox was understandably pissed off in spite of Knuckles being under Eggman's control because of the damage done to his plane, and with his rounded arm cannon cocked at the red echidna Tails quickly fires an electric sphere at him.

Knuckles thrusts his right fist forward and punches the sphere, but doesn't really feel any pain because of the insulation in his gloves. The red echidna scowls at his friend and says to him "Darn it Tails, you're with Sonic too?! Fine, I'll just punch you both out and take back the Emeralds you stole from me!"

Tails lowers his arm cannon and says to his friend "Knuckles, I know this is hard, but could you not be a gigantic idiot for just ONE MOMENT and realize that what you're saying MAKES. NO. SENSE?"

Sonic smiles and says to his foxy friend "Tails come on, even if he wasn't under Egghead's control he probably would have been led into believing that we were against him. Thinking isn't his strong-point."

The yellow fox jokingly points out "Says the expert on the subject, right?" Sonic flinches momentarily and gestures towards his friend's rather good remark, saying in a barely offended tone of voice "Heh, I'll give you that one Tails."

Knuckles angrily scowls at his two friends and says to them "Hey! Stop conspiring and fight me already!"

The blue blur looks back over at the red echidna and says to him in a merry tone of voice "Sheesh, fine Knuckles, lets start taking this seriously, shall we?" Sonic then kindly gestures towards his foxy friend and says to him "Alright Tails, good luck here!"

Sonic then swings his arms back and sprints forward past Knuckles while taunting him with a merry "Catch me if you can knucklehead!" As the blue blur zips through the fire and blows it away on both sides of his body, all the while the red echidna turns where Sonic has ran off to and briefly exclaims "Hey!"

Knuckles quickly punches the ground hard enough to create an earthquake across the platform to try and trip Sonic up, which actually works to his advantage as the blue blur slips and crashes onto his backside, leaving him temporarily vulnerable to the red echidna's attacks. Knuckles pulls his fist up and looks at the debris around him. Picking up a battered propeller, the red echidna throws it hard at the blue hedgehog's head while he's downed.

Tails however quickly fires off another electric sphere that connects with the propeller mid-flight and blows it up. Sonic then uses his hands to flip himself so his feet are pointing upward before he switches into a ball-like form, revving himself up and charging at the red echidna as the smoke caused by the explosion obscures him for a moment. The wind created by his dash blows it aside, letting Knuckles catch on to Sonic's movements.

Even a dim bulb such as Knuckles could take advantage of this opportunity, and he quickly kneels down and uses his hands to grab onto Sonic's body. The rapid spinning of the blue hedgehog's body along with his momentum pushes Knuckles across the ground for a bit before he finally gets a firm grasp on his body. Knuckles then lifts the blue hedgehog up and spins himself around like a top, building up speed before flinging Sonic away from the platform.

Tails, who had a bead on Knuckles with his arm cannon during these events, hesitated because his friend was in the red echidna's grasp. Now that Sonic was in danger of descending rapidly towards the unknown depths of the Egg Continent, Tails wastes little time in declaring his friend's name in a frightened panic and quickly shooting Knuckles vulnerable body with an electric sphere. As the red echidna is briefly paralyzed to the point of his bones being seen between zaps, Tails swerves towards Sonic's flight path and launches out a claw attached to his rope from the arm cannon.

The claw wraps around Sonic's curled up body and with a quick tug Tails pulls his blue friend back onto the platform, dropping him off on the ground in front of him as he retracts the claw fully back into his arm cannon. The blue blur then gets back into a standing position after uncurling himself, though his head moved around a little bit out of dizziness, but once he recovered he just shook it once and grabbed his forehead while saying to his buddy in a thankful tone "That was a close one Tails, glad you were on that."

"No problem." Tails replies with a happy and appreciative laugh, but the tender moment is once again interrupted by Knuckles as he tosses a burning wing at the two heroes. Both of them quickly leap back to dodge the flying wing as it flies away out of sight, and as the yellow fox turns to face the red echidna as he lands he gives him a serious glare and states "You're just making this more difficult for yourself Knuckles!"

The red echidna, after pulling his right hand back, punches his fists together hard in the center of his body as red sparks begin to rise up and spin around him, followed by an intense heated glow circling around the bottom of his feet. "Lets kick things up a notch!" Knuckles exclaims as his body bursts out a dark red aura of heat and he quickly leaps straight at Sonic.

With fist flung behind his head as it is held tightly, the red echidna swings it down in an attempt to blow Sonic's head clean off, but the blue blur folds his arms in front of his chest and nonchalantly zips off behind where he stood to dodge the attack. Knuckles' impact with the ground causes an eruption of magma spheres in multiple directions, each one creating a tiny heated explosion as they make contact with the platform or the ground level of the Egg Continent.

Sonic has to zip left and right to dodge the attacks, while Tails leaps into the sky and uses the whirling motion of his tails to fly out of range of the spheres. While the bombardment continues on for a good few more seconds, Knuckles pulls his fist out of the metal platform and pulls it behind him while turning to look at Sonic. Charging up his energy, Knuckles thrusts forward with all of his might and with a rather lucky blow he manages to hit the blue hedgehog straight in the gut.

All pretenses of Sonic's speed are killed instantly, and the blue blur coughs up a bit of spit past the head of the red echidna. As Knuckles pulls back his fist and steps behind a couple of feet as his prior magma eruption attack comes to an end, he happens to land on a mine that Tails had planted earlier, and the top of it pops open and a metallic fist punches Knuckles right up into the air with a mighty blow. The yellow fox then drops his flight for a moment and spins his body around, alternating between hitting him with his tails and maintaining a steady position in the air while the red echidna is dazed.

However, once Knuckles recovers and begins to be caught by the pull of gravity, he quickly thrusts his fist out and strikes Tails while his tails were out of range. The yellow fox is sent tumbling backwards through the air, but even as his flight is broken he didn't feel worried about his condition since the blow wasn't strong enough to prevent him from recovering.

Speaking of recovery, Sonic manages to deal with the daze of Knuckles' earlier punch, and as he pulls his hands away from his stomach he smirks and looks up at the falling red echidna while joking at him "I forgot how much of a heavy hitter you were Knuckles. But guess what? So am I!"

The blue hedgehog quickly curls up into a ball and revs up, waiting just long enough for Knuckles to fall halfway between his current position and the ground before he launches him forward and leaps into the air, ramming himself right into Knuckles' back hard enough to break him out of his powered up form. The red echidna's body is lunged forward as Sonic breaks out of his ball-like form and quickly chains his previous move into a spinning mid-air kick that strikes Knuckles multiple times in his vulnerable backside.

Sonic follows up by flipping himself in a vertical manner and using a mighty kick straight onto Knuckles' head that sends the red echidna straight into the metallic platform. The dent created by the impact is as deep as it could have been without the metal layer being broken through, and the blue hedgehog ends off his combo by pushing down his right foot to work in conjunction with gravity, rapidly dropping himself through the air and impacting Knuckles in the back with his dropping kick.

As Knuckles groans in pain, the blue hedgehog backflips onto solid ground while Tails lands on the opposite side of the dent in the platform. "Is that it?" The yellow fox asks as he looks down upon his red friend.

The purple fog hadn't yet vanished yet from around Knuckles' head, and unsurprisingly because of that the red echidna quickly springs back to life and after pushing himself onto his feet he leaps into the air and goes straight for a burning uppercut on Tails. The yellow fox leaps back and tries to fire an electric sphere at Knuckles, only for a click in the cannon to signify to him that he needed to wait a while for the energy to charge back up before firing a shot of that type.

"See Tails? He's way too stubborn to go down easily." Sonic points out as he shrugs his shoulders and smiles, deep down enjoying that the fight with Knuckles was still underway.

"Well we can't waste any more time with this Sonic. Not while Eggman is working on his 'ultimate machine'." Tails points out in rebuttal, which causes Sonic to stop kicking his feet against the ground as he hangs his head and swings his hand down, saying to Tails in a deflated voice "Fine Tails, I GUESS we could end this now…"

The blue blur then leaps into the air as Knuckles begins to turn to face him, and once he was high enough he taunts his red friend with a jovial "Hey knucklehead, you ready to give up yet?!"

Knuckles raises his fist into the air at Sonic and exclaims at him "Why do you always have to treat this like a game Sonic?! Can't you take just one thing seriously?"

Sonic smirks and says to the red echidna "What, and become like Shadow? Come on Knuckles, that's about as likely to happen as you never falling for a villain's tricks!"

The blue hedgehog then suspends himself in mid-air by curling himself into a ball and rapidly spinning in place as trails of light swirls and merge with his body bit by bit, and with Knuckles putting all of his focus towards Sonic as he holds his hands in the air ready to catch whatever the blue blur planned to throw his way he was unaware of the fact that Tails' arm cannon had charged back up enough to allow him one more shot.

The yellow fox slowly walks back and props his arm cannon up ready to hit Knuckles at just the right moment. Once Sonic has charged up his patented Light Speed Attack, his body glows a brightly blue-green shade and he launches himself straight at the red echidna. Tails fires an electric sphere at Knuckles before Sonic attacks, the high voltage forcing the red echidna to pull his hands away from the center of his body as he is electrocuted.

Defenseless, Sonic's Light Speed Attack hits its mark hard and true in a mere second, striking Knuckles with so much force that he'd likely be torn apart if it wasn't for his stubbornly high durability. The blue blur pulls back and lands on the ground as the streaks left by his attack fades away and the purple fog around the red echidna's head starts to the vanish. Knuckles collapses forward, but manages to plant one fist in the ground before he falls all the way. Dazed and barely conscious thanks to Sonic's attack, Knuckles murmurs out slowly "D-Darn it…I failed to protect the E-E-Emer…Huh?"

Knuckles snaps out of the mind control as every fragment of purple fog disappears from sight, and upon looking up and seeing the blue hedgehog standing in front of his he asks in a weakened tone of voice "S-Sonic? Is that really you?"

The blue blur happily replies with "The one and only."

The red echidna then grasps the front of his head with his left glove and shakes it around slowly, saying in a bewildered tone of voice "What have I been doing? Where am I?"

Tails interjects at this point, saying to the rather dazed Knuckles in a quick yet wise sounding manner "You were under Eggman's control and sent to fight us. We are currently on his latest waste of metal, the Egg Continent."

Knuckles glances over at Tails and says in yet another puzzled tone "T-Tails too? …Eggman was controlling me?"

The yellow fox nods his head, and as the dizziness from Sonic's Light Speed Attack starts to wear off Knuckles is slowly able to recall the events that led up to this point "T-That's right…Eggman ambushed me and knocked me unconscious…And I remember waking up in some strange laboratory with a bunch of pods…Shadow was in one of them, but that's all I remember…"

"Yeah, well we already dealt with Mr. Black and Moody on the ground." Sonic points out as Knuckles finishes recalling what he knew, but he goes on to say "But Eggman ambushed you? Sheesh Knuckles, you should be thankful he didn't swipe the Master Emerald while you were unconscious."

Knuckles gets on his feet and looks at Sonic, saying at him in a snippy tone of voice "Hey, I'll have you know I wasn't even on Angel Island when that stinking Eggman attacked me!"

Though Knuckles sounded proud of what he said, Sonic and Tails quickly let out annoyed sighs as they reacted differently to the news, with the blue hedgehog raises his hands and shaking his head while Tails slaps the front of his face and slowly slides the fingers down. "Knuckles you idiot!" The two exclaim in utter disbelief.

The red echidna looks back and forth at his two friends, a puzzled expression crossing his face as he says to them "What? What did I do?!"

Sonic spells it out for his pea-brained friend as he communicates with Tails "Well Tails, now we know what Eggman's endgame is."

The yellow fox nods his head, but gestures with both arms as he says to his buddy "Well Eggman's definitely after the Master Emerald, but all of this seems like overkill if that is his only goal. And what would be the point of mind-controlling Shadow and Knuckles then?"

Knuckles slams his fists together and says to interrupt his two buddies "That scumbag Eggman always pulls these dirty tricks whenever he tries to defeat Sonic. Of course that madman would go this far in order to try and beat Sonic."

With a scowl on his face, the red echidna turns towards Sonic and says to him with a burning passion in his voice "Well if Eggman's launching an assault on Angel Island, then what are we standing around for?! We need to punch this ship apart and crack Eggman wide open!"

Tails sighs and says to his hot-blooded friend "Once again Knuckles, your 'punch first, ask questions later' shtick is just going to cause more trouble than necessary for us."

Knuckles turns to face his friend and says in a loud, accusing tone of voice "And just what do you mean by that Tails?!"

"He means that unless you want to blow us all sky-high with your recklessness, you will listen to everything I have to say!" Eggman's booming voice cuts in on the conversation between the three heroes, and with his hologram looming beside them they turn to look his way.

Knuckles in particular raises his right fist in anger and says to him "So you decide to show yourself, eh? Come on over here and face me! I'll punch your lights out!"

Eggman says in response to the echidna's hot-blooded bravado in an utterly sarcastic tone of voice "Yes, I'm sure you will. But first, how about you three enjoy a nice fall?"

The doctor taps the cuff of his outfit's right sleeve as a wide grin crosses his face, and immediately afterwards three holes open up underneath the heroes' feet. Knuckles and Sonic fall in a mere second while letting out a prolonged, surprised yell, but Tails manages to hover above the hole with the help of his tails for but a few seconds before Eggman activates a powerful vacuum that drags the yellow fox right down the tube to join his friends. As the holes are sealed up tightly, Eggman's hologram laughs joyously for a good few seconds…

_Next Time: Eggman's Test_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Suspicions Arise**

After flying away from Sonic and the others, Riku took a good few seconds to look over the Egg Continent as he got closer to it. "I can't believe Eggman built something of this magnitude without anyone noticing. Its not as big as even the smallest of Earth's continents, but just the action of rising up should have pulled up the ground or water around it and caused wanton destruction."

"_I can assure you, nothing was destroyed when this was launched. After all, what good would their be in destroying the land I plan to build the Eggman Empire on top of?" _Eggman's voice calls out to Riku from the side, and the boy turns to see a small, rotund TV monitor with a static-y screen showing the doctor's face on it floating beside him. The teenage Overlord happened to notice something odd about the doctor's voice though, how it had a bit more of a gentleman like accent and lacked most of the insanity present in the hologram earlier.

Though it could have been that Eggman was keeping his cool around someone he had no clue about, Riku logged this change in tone in the back of his head for now and said to the doctor with a firm glare in his eyes "So where am I going, exactly?"

"_You are heading to the Egg Museum, a historical building of my own design that showcases almost life-sized models of the various machines I have created over the years. I figure that as a newcomer to our world, it's only fair that you be given a chance to see what you are up against." _Eggman says, his voice dripping with honesty even though through experience outside this world Riku knew for a fact that the doctor was planning something for him.

Raising one eyebrow a bare inch, the teenage Overlord turns away from the monitor and continues flying until he reaches the building that Eggman wanted him to go to. The building was decorated in an incredibly fancy arrange of gold and red metal, with a red carpet extending from the center of the circular platform Riku had landed on to the pristine glass doors at the end. Spotlights on both sides of the carpet lift up and shine bright rays that cross each other mid-way through the sky.

"_Now then, what type of music shall I play?" _Eggman says in an intrigued tone of voice as he flips through a bunch of options on the other side of the monitor. After choosing a track to play, Eggman says to boy _"Now then, head on into the museum. You will be guided by a pre-recorded voice of yours truly, for I have other business to take care of." _

The monitor's screen then shuts down before it flies off, and the air around the museum is filled with a piano rendition of "E.G.G.M.A.N.", a song that Riku is able to recognize as such thanks to the first few notes. The boy walks forward, cautious as to the doctor's plans for him as he enters through the automatically opening doors of the museum. The first thing Riku was greeted by as the doors sealed him in with the piano music in the atmosphere was a glass cage on red cushioned pedestal that showed Eggman's old capsule-shaped ride from when he first ever fought Sonic.

A checkered ball was attached to a chain at the bottom of the capsule, but Eggman had positioned the model so it the chain was swung in a curve through the air behind the machine. As Riku briefly examined this dynamically posed model and went off to the left to further explore the museum, Eggman's previously mentioned prerecorded voice began to activate _"Ah, the Egg Capsule. From my humblest of beginnings my machines were magnificent to behold. The ball and chain, while not one of my finer attachments, wou-"_

While Eggman's voice went on an ego trip, Riku looked back and forth at the many machines that the doctor had lined up not just in the form of models, but also sometimes in painting format as well. "Huh, who would have guessed that Eggman had an artistic side to him. Despite him being a megalomaniac, I can give him credit for the finer details he's put into his work anyways…"

"_This is obviously a trap though." _The black dragon Takashi states into the mind of his friend. Riku nods his head subtly enough that Eggman shouldn't be able to notice and proceeds to mention in response _"Naturally. But I can't just bust this place apart without Eggman activating the bomb." _

"_I can tell though. There's another reason you are going along with this madman's wishes, right?" _Takashi goes on to mention, which causes Riku to crack a smile as he responds with _"You hit it right on the mark Takashi. Eggman doesn't know anything about me, so the last thing I want to do is show him my full strength right off the bat." _

"…_Of course, your battle with the one called Shadow the Hedgehog probably did little to help that matter." _Takashi bluntly states, which causes Riku to nervously smile as he awkwardly mentions to the black dragon _"Well I didn't use that much on Shadow…Admittedly though, he was stronger than me once he went into his 'Chaos Blast' state…At least at a base level."_

"_That Sonic character seems to be able to handle this madman on his own though. In fact, I feel quite confident that we aren't needed here. So why bother sticking around?" _Takashi asks in a curious tone of voice.

"_Anything can happen Takashi. Considering how long you've observed me for, that should be quite obvious. Besides, Sonic and I still need to have a race, and we can't do that while Eggman's causing trouble." _Riku answers.

As he reaches this particular point in the conversation, the boy takes a moment to turn a corner and happens to notice something rather peculiar standing out atop a one-foot high stand. It was a mechanical monstrosity with two dragon-like wings and a gaping maw, with a hole at the top big enough for a modified Egg Capsule to fit inside of. Riku moved forward with a little more speed to look at the model's display name. As suspected, this machine was called the "Egg Wyvern", which caused a single drop of cold sweat to trickle down the side of the boy's face mere moments after he stared at it.

"_Ok, we might actually have a time anomaly going on around here…" _Riku thinks to Takashi while he simultaneously notices that Eggman has said nothing regarding this machine despite finishing off his egotistical overview of the one before this.

"_A time anomaly? How do you figure?" _As the black dragon asks this of his ally, the teenage Overlord starts to move away from the model of the Egg Wyvern to not draw Eggman's suspicion. As he headed down the hall and everything started to grow darker, Riku responded to the dragon's question as he firmly slanted his eyelids _"That machine that I just saw…The events that could have caused Eggman to build it no longer exist."_

"…_You sure that wasn't just a failed prototype design that Eggman was nonetheless proud of making? The guy's a nutcase, so its possible that he'd keep even his failures around." _Takashi tries to reason to the boy, but Riku didn't really believe that in the slightest.

"_He would have listed it as a prototype then…" _As the teenage Overlord notes that particular detail, he begins to slow down his pace and realize that the prerecorded messages had suddenly stopped, and after a few more seconds he grits his teeth out of annoyance towards himself as he swings his right hand out ready to draw his sword.

But before he summons it from the ether, two rays of yellow light flash down from above, both coming from a gigantic robot obscured in the shadows. Riku thinks to the black dragon _"I wasn't cautious enough Takashi…I fell for Eggman's two-layered trap." _

Instead of Takashi responding though, the eloquent Sodenko interjects by mentioning _"Of course you did. Anyone who wastes their time speaking to my foolish brother would lose caution in an instant." _

"_Now isn't the time for your words, sister." _Takashi brushes aside the white dragon that is his sister with nonchalance before he goes on to ask Riku _"Even if you cannot destroy the battleship, you can summon me to help out against this robot if it gives you trouble."_

Riku jokingly replies with _"What, don't you trust me to handle this?" _to which Takashi responds bluntly _"Not at all, but if time anomalies are involved on this world it wouldn't hurt to be cautious." _

"_Fair enough, but I can't unveil you in front of Eggman's cameras since that might give him a chance to build something that can stop you." _Takashi responds to Riku's reasoning by boasting _"Personally, I'd like to see him try. But I'll honor your request anyways. Good luck."_

With the conversation between the two having dropped, Eggman finally takes action as the robot's eyes continue to glare down upon him. The confines of the museum begin to distort and tear apart, revealing a futuristic confinement that consisted of silver-grey and red metallic surfaces and flashing blue machinery. The lights of this room revealed the titanic robot in full. It was one of Eggman's oldest machines, which was built to resemble him greatly with mechanical parts. The hands had three spikes attached to them, and rockets were attached to the backs and bottoms of the feet.

"_Mwahahaha!" _Eggman's raunchy laugh fills the room from the head of the robot, but from the tiny bits of echoing static coming from within Riku knew that the robot was being operated from afar. The doctor continued on by saying _"I must admit, I didn't think it would be this easy to figure out what your deal is."_

Riku stood quietly as he finished drawing his sword in front of his right hand and looked up at the robot as it slowly whirred to life, the arms rising into the air as Eggman went on to say _"You're from another world, one that is somehow familiar with the inner workings of our planet…Including events that theoretically should not be recalled by anyone here."_

The doctor's assessment was short but perfectly described in nature that Riku felt a like bit of self-loathing as he scoffed and thought to himself _"Figures…If Tails could determine where I'm from, it would only make sense that his intellectual equal could as well. All it took was me glancing at the Egg Wyvern for more than one second, and Eggman had all he needed on my origin…"_

"_You know, you aren't the first person who has come from another world with information on us. A boy with the powers of darkness at his command came and fought Sonic and Shadow on Angel Island, and quite surprisingly managed to nearly kill them both and destroy the entire planet…" _Eggman explains, which actually makes Riku take pause and listen in with a great deal of interest in his expression.

"_So now I must ask, are you from the same world as that person? Were you sent in as an infiltrator to gain the trust of Sonic and the others so your race can take over the planet easily once you betray and kill them?" _All of these questions were spoken in a nonchalant manner by Eggman, making it all the more easier for Riku to answer them once he was given the chance.

"I can't answer whether or not I'm from the same world as the boy of darkness, but since you've brought all this up I have to ask you now…Why are you expecting me to give a straight answer in regards to your questions?" The boy firmly inquires.

"_Ohohoho, so you picked up my intentions. Interesting. Very well then, I would like to throw out an offer. If you are planning to take over this world, then instead of wasting your time with these naïve infiltration tactics you should become one with the glorious Eggman Empire!" _Eggman's offer was ludicrous in nature from the view point of the teenage Overlord, which Riku theorized was partially the point as he thought up his answer.

Swerving his body sideways in the face of the Death Egg Robot standing in front of him and letting his sword spin around behind him while brandishing his left hand towards the air in front of his face, Riku says to Eggman "I know you're a bit crazy there Eggman, but I would never take up such an offer. You're threatening Sonic and his friends along with the rest of the world, so I am going to help the blue blur stop you. And this isn't part of an attempt to take over the world either."

"_Oh, so you consider yourself to be a hero then?" _Eggman states with the utmost joy in his voice, only for Riku to respond with "No. In fact, I loathe being called by such a title."

"_Hmph…Regardless of your views, I will take full pleasure in stopping you and that pesky blue hedgehog for good." _Eggman states as he fully activates the Death Egg Robot, commanding the machine's upper body to spin around to loosen any remaining gears as it thrusts its left hand outward at the boy.

Riku responds with a sly smirk and an equally sly remark of "You think you can stop me with this overused piece of junk? Ok, bring it on."

Eggman leaves the Death Egg Robot to its own devices as he cuts off the line of communication to it. The teenage Overlord then notes to himself _"My sword should be sharp enough to cut this down. I won't use any of my elements just to keep my advantage going against Eggman."_

In an instant the teenage Overlord leaps at the Death Egg Robot as the mechanical titan thrusts its spiked left hand out at him. The spikes grind against the metal and fill the air with reddish sparks as Riku heads for the head of the robot. But before the swing of his sword can cleave through the metal a couple laser beams burst out from the eyes and strike the boy dead center in his chest.

After flinching momentarily in surprise the boy is launched back through the air, where after a couple of tumbles he manages to recover and press his feet against the wall behind him. Kicking off from that wall, Riku flies straight at the robot again at a faster speed than his earlier leap, but after pulling his hand from the ground the Death Egg Robot fires its rockets and leaps into the air to go over the boy's body. As the teenage Overlord flips himself around and halts his flight, the robot crash lands on the ground without somehow denting the metal floor.

Riku wastes little time in swooping towards the backside of the Death Egg Robot and slashing upward at it with his sword. The cut tears through the black metal underside and reveals some tightly knit wiring underneath that is nicked by the edge of the boy's blade. The robot then flips its upper body around while holding its arms outward, the tips of one of the spikes cutting Riku across the left cheek as the boy pulls himself back away from the robot.

With blood slightly dripping from the nick, Riku treats the bits of pain with calmness as he waits for the robot to finish rotating in place. Holding his right hand behind himself while steadying his sword like an arrow in front of his palm, the teenage Overlord focuses on the head of the robot and at the very moment the rotation ends he throws his sword like a whirling javelin, but the blade punctures through the right side of the head instead of the central area where the processing unit like was. Though a large chunk of metal is taken out along with the laser array system, Riku is left without his sword for a few brief seconds as he recalls it with his mind.

Pulling all power into the left eye, the Death Egg Robot fires an all-encompassing blast of crimson energy towards the teenage Overlord, forcing the boy to crossing his arms in front of his body and utilize all of his strength into dulling the burning might of the attack. As the laser presses down upon his body, Riku guides his sword back around and aims it this time for the center of the robot's head now that he was certain of its position.

With one pulling thought, the teenage Overlord's blade pierces through the central processor unit located in the head of the Death Egg Robot, which shuts down all functionality the titanic mech could muster in a near instant. This included the robot's ability to stand with all of its girth, and as Riku grabs a hold of his sword in front of his palm after pulling his arms away from the front of his chest he raises the blade above his head with both hands beside where the handle should be and waits as the robot falls down towards him.

One forward swing of his blade cleaves the robot in half all the way through, and both sides crash against the ground as sparks fly between both halves with Riku in the center of it all. An explosion does away with every last bit of metal the Death Egg Robot was composed of save for perhaps a couple of gears, and the teenage Overlord is relatively unharmed thanks to the burning composition of the explosion itself.

The destruction of the titanic robot warrants nothing more than a simple remark of "You should have tested me with a stronger robot Eggman! Sonic could beat that outdated thing in his sleep nowadays!"

The doctor replies to the boy through another speaker he hid away in this very room _"Hmph, cocky little brat, aren't you? Very well, if you want to face something tougher…"_

Riku turns to the right as Eggman throws open a rectangular door in the metallic wall that leads into a lightless passage. The doctor then finishes off his earlier sentence with an overconfident remark of _"Then head right this way, and I promise you you'll get your fill." _Eggman signs off quickly, quite possibly to go deal with Sonic and the others, and after dispelling his sword the teenage Overlord cautiously passed the remnants flames of the Death Egg Robot's destruction and went on down the passageway to take care of whatever Eggman planned to toss at him next…

_Next Time: Shadow's Ordeal_


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: The Tragic Reunion**

Shadow the Hedgehog stands on the rounded platform summoned to him by Dr. Eggman, his body carried through the skies above the Egg Continent as he makes his way towards an unknown destination. The black hedgehog, with his arms folded in front of his chest, glares up at the Final Fortress in the distance and quietly says to himself "Doctor…" with a slight tone of discontent in his voice.

The platform reaches its end destination, a patch of diamond shaped metal surrounded by an electric fence as tall as Shadow himself. Jumping off onto this new platform, the black hedgehog glances back briefly and watches as the platform he was just on flies off into the distance. Now unfurling his arms and turning back towards the hallway in the distance, Shadow firmly slants his eyebrows down and slowly walks forward without saying a word. The doors blocking the way to the hallway swing open, revealing a darkened passage behind it.

As Shadow heads through this hallway without any light to help him see where he is going, he puts his left hand against the wall so he'll know when the passage makes a sudden turn. The speakers obscured off in the distance activate, filling the hallways with the echoing taunts of the nefarious doctor Eggman. _"Come now Shadow, do you really think you can go through with vengeance against me?"_

The black hedgehog says nothing in response to the doctor's comments. In spite of his earlier stint of anger, he knew now that he was playing by Eggman's rules, so he couldn't afford to be even the slightest bit reckless like Sonic was likely going to be. Shadow slowly continues to walk on ahead as the hallway slants downward, leading the hedgehog deeper and deeper into the doctor's grandiose Egg Continent.

"_Hehehehe…You know Shadow, you and I are the last remnants of our grandfather's legacy. If you kill me to exact your revenge, then what he would he think of you?" _Eggman states afterwards, which causes Shadow to slightly scowl this time around in response. But the black hedgehog takes a slow and quiet breath to calm himself down as he pauses, and he continues on his way while trying his hardest to drown out the doctor.

But Eggman had one last comment in mind to rile up the emotions of the usually stoic black hedgehog. It wasn't too hard to imagine the vile grin on Eggman's face as he slowly and piercingly said to Shadow _"And what would Maria think if you killed me?" _

The mere mention of that name caused Shadow to pause once more as images of what he saw while mind-controlled by Eggman flash through his head, causing him to grimace in pain against his will as he kneels down and clenches his right hand against his head, keeping the other one against the wall as he tries to fight against the imagery. Focusing in on the remaining echoes of the sounds the doctor made, Shadow slowly lifts his head up and pulls his right hand behind him, charging up a bit of yellow energy around it before he launches a swift Chaos Spear towards a speaker in the corner ahead of him.

The speaker is instantly destroyed, the feedback caused by its end filling the hallway for a few moments as the sparks fill the hallway briefly with light. Shadow, without Eggman's voice inciting his emotions, rises back onto his feet and lets out a relieved sigh. But before he can move even one step forward, another speaker activates in the hallway much to the black hedgehog disdain. _"Hehehe, hit a nerve, did I now? You probably need to take your aggression out on something, so just keep going on ahead and I will deliver you a means of releasing your anger."_

Eggman shuts off the speakers at that point, leaving Shadow to glare up in disdain as the fading light from the sparks leave him in the darkness once more. The black hedgehog then focuses on ahead and continues walking cautiously, winding a corner and continuing to descend further down into the depths of the Egg Continent. This far down, the area starts to grow colder, the metal on the walls feeling like raw ice even with the protection of Shadow's gloves helping him out. With each breath from here on out releasing a bit of frosty steam, the black hedgehog continues on his way and waits for the moment where he will finally be out of this very long hallway.

Shadow walks for another good two minutes before he finally escapes the hallway and enters a wide-open, hexagon shaped area lit up by tubes of flowing magma on each corner of the room. There is a door on each wall, all of them sealed up by pressurized locks that not even Shadow felt he'd be able to break with all of his strength. Though it seemed at first that the black hedgehog had arrived at a dead end, he knew for a fact that Eggman purposely wanted him in such an expansive space to face whatever he had prepared specifically for him.

Shadow stands still and examines the two doors in the upper left and right corners as they decompress and slowly begin to open up. Carried into the room by rounded stands clamped to the bottom are egg-shaped pods that look much like the one that Shadow was kept inside. The black hedgehog's nerves tense up as he looks at the capsules, and he thinks to himself _"No…He couldn't have…"_

A hammer comes out of the walls above both of the capsules to crack them open with a single, precise blow, and as the green fog descends from the air from where the capsules once were Shadow scowls at the doctor's vile decision. He recognized the figures beyond the fog instantly, and like himself both were covered with the purple mind-control fog around their heads.

On the left capsule was a female bat wearing a skintight black tube-style body suit with a large pink heart-shaped breast plate, long white gloves, and white thigh-high boots with pink hearts on the toes. Her boots have metal heels and soles, suggesting that kicks are how she fights with. She has long eyelashes and wears blue eye-shadow, both of which are very prominent thanks to the dazed look in her eyes.

On the right capsule is a bulky armed robot with a slick black and red color scheme with a couple yellow details near his hands and head. The robot had long silver metal claws that could easily spin around in the confines of his cylinder shaped arms that were attached to his broad, rectangular shoulders. The left shoulder had a red Greek Omega symbol. His feet were flat yet long enough to keep his massive body stable on the ground along with the solid joints that creak to life as the robot activates. With red eyes flaring alit above the wide, heavy main body, the robot lifts its right arm up and points it at Shadow.

The speakers hidden up in the ceiling activate, filling the room with Eggman's glorious hammy voice as he exclaims with glee _"Ohohohohoh! Well then Shadow, if you still need to take your aggression on someone, you are more than welcome to do so on your closest friends!"_

This very act that the doctor has performed, malicious in both nature and tone, breaks Shadow the Hedgehog's normally stoic demeanor as he tightens his fists and exclaims with a growling prelude "EGGMAN, I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND KILL YOU FOR THIS!" 

The very joy brought on by hearing the normally troublesome Shadow cracking apart at the seams with anger causes Eggman to break into a prolonged streak of laughter that lasts a good twenty seconds, the repeated echoes of its existence chilling the black hedgehog to the core even after it ends. A few remnants of laughter fill the room as Eggman struggles to compose himself, but as the final giggles leave his mouth he says to the black hedgehog _"Hehehe…No Shadow, you are the only one who is going to die here today. Rouge, E-123 Omega…Finish this nuisance off for me, if you'd please."_

Rogue the Bat and Omega perk their heads up and look at Shadow, both of them saying respectively in regards to the commands Eggman was making them hear "Right away." "Affirmative, Eggman."

The words of the robot hurt Shadow the most. For most of their time together, the black hedgehog knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Omega would never show even a single bit of loyalty towards Eggman. To have that freedom robbed by this insane act of mind control made Shadow hesitate to start the battle for a few crucial moments, something that neither Rouge nor Omega was going to wait for him to overcome before they attacked.

Omega pulled his claws back into his arm and called forth a gatling gun, firing rapidly upon his comrade as Eggman wished for him to do with a storm of bullets. Shadow, hearing the whirr of Omega's weapon a mere second before it fired, snapped out of his hesitation and quickly leaped to the right, latching himself against a wall before jumping off of it as Omega swings his arm so his bullets follow the movements of the black hedgehog.

The durable walls in this room are riddled with bullet holes, showing just how impressive the robot's firepower was and emphasizing just how even the slightest bit of hesitation will cause Shadow to meet his end. Following up from his wall jump, the black hedgehog lands on the ground and prepares to dash at Omega before the robot can lock back onto him and aim his gatling at his direction.

But as he increases his speed with the help of his rocket shoes Rouge swoops down from the air and strikes Shadow in the front of his head with the sole of her right shoe. The black hedgehog is blown back through room, but even with how tough the bat's shoes are Shadow quickly recovers and uses a quick burst of heat from his rocket shoes to flip himself around and skid along the metal ground for a few good feet. Planting one hand against the ground as he recovers, the black hedgehog stares up at disbelief at Rouge without saying a word.

Instead, as the bat slowly flaps her wings and lands on the ground with a sorrowful look in her eyes, she says to her comrade "Shadow…Why? Why would you betray us?"

The black hedgehog murmurs out quietly "Rouge…" but before he could say anymore Omega rushes forward and brushes Rouge aside as gently as he could with his arms, pointing both of his arms forward and saying in a dutifully angered yet appropriately robotic tone of voice "For the glory of the Eggman Empire, the traitor Shadow the Hedgehog shall be terminated! Weapon systems set to 'LETHAL', target locked…FIRE!"

Pulling both his hands into his arms, Omega launches a massive flamethrower that spreads out across the room in front of him, but before the wave of scorching fire burns Shadow to nothingness the black hedgehog activates Chaos Control to warp himself behind both Omega and Rouge in an instant. The robot recognizes the departure of Shadow's life signature from his scanners, and quickly ends up correcting this matter by turning around after shutting off his flamethrowers and pushing his claws back out.

Rouge follows the robot's movements and looks at the black hedgehog, who looks at both of his comrades with a hesitant look of disgust on his face. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out that most of his disgust is directed towards Eggman, but even with his emotions in a flux as he is simultaneously thinking about the doctor and his two mind-controlled friends he tries to break through to either one of them by stating "Rouge, Omega, snap out of it, I'm not your enemy!"

Rouge replies by saying "You destroyed G.U.N.'s HQ and ran off swearing to end all humans…The Shadow I know would never do anything like that. But you aren't really Shadow…You're just a pawn of the Black Arms, an alien conqueror and nothing else, right?" Her voice was so monotone and yet despite knowing that the words were born of Eggman's mind-control they hurt all the same.

Omega goes on to mention in the same tone of voice "All who oppose the glorious Eggman are my enemies. I have no 'allies' or 'friends', especially not you, Shadow the Hedgehog."

Shadow grits his teeth and curses Eggman in his mind as he looks at his closest comrades and says to them in as honest of a voice as he can muster "Then I have no choice…I will have to knock both of you out to free you from the doctor's control." While his words dripped with subtle melancholy, the black hedgehog knew that he would have to live up to what he said now. Omega was nearly as strong as he was, and Rouge was quick on her feet and was able to hit hard if given the chance.

Knowing their strength because of all the times they had worked together, Shadow could not afford even a single mistake, or Eggman's earlier words would ring true. Not only that, but Rouge and Omega would be kept under the doctor's nefarious control forever. And Omega especially wouldn't be able to live himself knowing that he was forced to work for the man that he so desperately loathed. "Here I go!" Shadow proclaims as he finishes thinking everything over on what he has to do.

In this time period, Rouge has reached into her suit and pulled out three glowing purple bombs that he has slipped between her fingers. With a quick throw the bat tosses them at her comrade just seconds before they were ready to detonate. Shadow leaps into the air right as the bombs detonate, but Rouge follows his movements by leaping backwards and flapping her wings to keep herself elevated in front of Shadow.

The bat uses her agile movements to flip herself around vertically, bringing her right foot into the air to try and kick the black hedgehog before he lands. However, Shadow deals with her kick by leaning his body forward and swinging his right hand down to block it, but the collision of both forces kills Shadow's momentum and makes him drop to the ground while Rouge continues to fly backwards after readjusting her body back to its upright position.

Omega swerves his upper body around and charges at Shadow after he landed on the ground, picking him up with his right claw and using his backside rocket boosters to thrust forward the very moment Rouge leaps out of the way, allowing the robot to charge forth and slam the black hedgehog face first against the nearest pressurized door, breaking at least a couple of his target's bones in the process. The robot presses Shadow against the wall with all of his might, but the process only lasts a few seconds before the black hedgehog grunts and lets out a proclamation of "C-Chaos Control!"

Warping out of Omega's grasp causes the robot to clench his claws back together and scratch the dented door in front of him, but before he can swerve back around and lock back onto Shadow he is met with a firm kick to the body that brings him colliding against the door thanks to the black hedgehog himself. Backflipping from the recoil of the attack, Shadow lands on the ground and thinks to himself in a solemn tone _"Forgive me Omega…" _

Remembering Rouge's presence, Shadow quickly turns around and throws his arms in front of his chest to block and straight forward aerial kick from the agile bat. The force of the blow pushes him back a good foot along the ground, but Shadow follows up on this by pulling his arms away and skating along at Rouge once she lands on the ground.

What ensues between the two fighters is a clash of kicks and punches. Rouge's harder hitting kicks cause even the swiftly fighting Shadow to take more time to recover between each of his own blows than he could have anticipated, but so long as the black hedgehog didn't hear Omega whirring back to life he felt safe to keep on fighting Rouge until he could take advantage of a single opening.

Rouge kicks high into the air to go for Shadow's head, something he ducks over inches before it strikes, and with the amount of time it would take for the bat to lower her leg the black hedgehog leans forward and punches her in the side of her gut. The blow sends her flying across the room right as the robot starts to whirr back to life behind him. The black hedgehog glances over his right shoulder as Omega rises to his feet and swerves his upper body back into position, holding his arms up and transforming them into gatling guns once more.

With multiple shots fired straight at him, Shadow runs forward and moves left and right to dodge the bullets as he heads for the wall up ahead. Once he was far enough, the black hedgehog leaps and attaches himself to the wall for a second, leaping off of it towards a wall to the right and then leaping off of that one to head towards Omega. Curling himself into a ball to make the impact of his attack stronger, Shadow is unaware of the robot retracting his right gun into his arm and turning it into a powerful vacuum that drags the black hedgehog right against the lip.

Readjusting his arms so both are in front of his chest, Omega converts the other arm into its regular form and holds it down beside him as he leaps into the air and hovers in place with his booster rockets, aiming Shadow at one of the lava tubes with precision as he begins to charge up a counteractive force that would launch the black hedgehog to his death. But though Shadow was in this terrible predicament, he knew that Omega suffered a great deal of recoil after using this type of technique, and if he timed things right enough he'd be able to get a free attack in on the robot.

Shadow counts down the seconds leading up to Omega's attack, and when he was just one away from being launched the black hedgehog activates Chaos Control. A burst of fire emerges from Omega's arm as the black hedgehog warps time and space to warp himself behind the robot while still curled up in a ball. But he unfurls himself and applies a dropping kick upon his comrade's head.

Omega is sent towards the ground, but with how powerful his legs are the impact is greatly lessened even though the recoil he does suffer through his body causes him to stumble and drop his left claws against the ground to prevent himself from falling over completely. Shadow, using his shoes to hover in the air, swings his right hand beside his hand while charging it with yellow energy, looking down upon Omega's right arm and saying to him with a tone of regret "This is for your own good…"

Throwing a Chaos Spear downward, Shadow impales through the top of Omega's arm, keeping the robot pinned to the ground with the spear's continued existence for the time being as his ability to use that arm as a weapon has been lost. The black hedgehog then lands on the bit of ground behind the robot and uses Chaos Control to warp in front of him, looking on ahead and noticing that Rouge has vanished from view. Shadow looks up and sees the bat dive kicking at him with a determined cry.

Shadow dashes forward to dodge the kick, swerving around smoothly with the help of his rocket shoes and waiting until Rouge lands on the ground and turns around before he launches his next attack. With hesitation welling up as the bat looks his way, the black hedgehog dashes on ahead and throws out a strong punch straight into Rouge's face. He held back just enough of his power to ensure that when his comrade is sent flying against the wall behind Omega she would only be knocked unconscious as she lands on the ground with her back leaning against the wall and her head slanted towards her chest.

Grimacing at what he just had to do to his comrade, Shadow holds his fist in front of his chest for a brief moment as he stands back upright and looks at Omega, who was using all of his strength to tear himself free from the Chaos Spear, declares in a desperate tone of voice "Eradicate! Eradicate! Eradictate target, Shadow the Hedgehog!"

Ripping his arm out of the Chaos Spear at the cost of many parts needed to function, Omega lets the limb limp beside his body as he raises his left arm and changes it into a missile launcher. With eyes flaring up brightly once more, Omega slowly steps towards the black hedgehog and tries to fire the missiles, but with the severe damage dealt to him thanks to the kick to his head and the broken wiring in his arm his vision has gained an increasing amount of static while his body occasionally spasms with electricity.

From where Shadow was standing, he only needed to deal one more blow to Omega to knock him unconscious, but in his current condition even a weak hit might cause permanent damage to the robot's circuitry. With a melancholy look in his eyes as he considered his options, the black hedgehog was forced to activate Chaos Control the very moment Omega chose to fire off a missile. As the projectile blew up one of the doors in the very center wall in front of him, Shadow appears behind Omega and perhaps a quick karate chop against the back of the robot's head.

Within seconds, Omega's vision and weapons' system glitches out and the bulky robot starts to fall over, all the while his voice letting out a droned "Missi..on…must be…acc…omplis…ed….." before he crashes completely against the ground. Shadow, standing still between both of his fallen comrades as he lets out a couple tired breaths, looks at them both to see that the purple fog keeping them under Eggman's control is lifting.

The doctor then activates the speakers again, saying to the black hedgehog with a growl precluding his words _"Grrr…You are testing my patience you annoying black hedgehog! You should have peris-"_

Focusing in on where the sound is coming from, Shadow casually throws a Chaos Spear through the ceiling to destroy the speakers in their entirety and end Eggman's angered rant prematurely. Letting out a relaxed sigh for the time being, the black hedgehog turns to the right upon hearing an awakening groan coming from Rouge. The bat slowly creaks her eyelids open and lifts her head up as she awakens, looking up at Shadow as the hedgehog folds his arms against his chest and returns to his normally stoic expression.

Rouge flinches in surprise when she sees Shadow standing there by himself, and says in a tone matching her emotions "S-Shadow, is that actually you?"

Shadow's glance of indifference towards the bat was more than enough of an answer for her, and she smiled after letting out a sigh of relief as she said "Well thank goodness that's over…" but as she looks on ahead she notices Omega's fallen body on the ground and says with a shocked gasp as her eyes briefly widen "Omega!"

Quickly pushing herself onto her feet, Rouge runs over to kneeling beside the fallen robot without any previous damage she took slowing her down. Shadow unfurls his arms and turns to face both Rouge and Omega as the bat says to the robot "Hey, wake up Omega!"

When the robot doesn't respond to the bat's concern proclamation, Rouge turns towards Shadow and says to him "We were both controlled by Eggman, weren't we? Tell me you went easy on him Shadow."

The black hedgehog calmly says to Rouge "Don't worry. I hit him just as hard as I needed to knock him unconscious. It shouldn't take him long to get back online."

Feeling assured by Shadow's words, Rouge stands back up and looks at her comrade, saying in an smooth yet apologetic tone of voice "Sorry that I got you involved in this Shadow."

Shadow says in a nonchalant tone of voice "There's no need to apologize Rouge, the doctor captured and mind-controlled me as well."

Rouge looks at the black hedgehog with shock and says in an unsurprised tone of voice "I'm guessing Sonic helped you out though, right?"

Reluctantly, Shadow nods his head, but then goes on to ask Rouge while they have a moment to talk "Rouge, how did Eggman capture you in the first place?"

Rouge folds her arms flatly on top of each other, tilting her head slightly as she says in a respectful manner towards the black hedgehog "G.U.N. put me on an assignment to investigate activity in one of Eggman's abandoned bases. I had tracked his two robots Orbot and Cubot deep underground, but before I could get too far someone attacked me from behind and threw me into a capsule. I don't remember much after that."

"Sounds similar to my story, though I was investigating without G.U.N.'s giving me orders." Shadow responds, and afterwards Rouge unfurls her arms and says to her comrade "Still, doesn't this type of behavior seem rather…odd, even for Eggman?"

The black hedgehog looks away from Rouge for a moment and says in a calm of a voice as he can muster "No. The doctor has always been capable of this type of madness…"

Before Rouge can make another comment, the two comrades hear a noise coming from beside them. Clicks and whirrs indicate that Omega has regained functionality, and after the robot trembles a few times he comments in a joking, robotic tone of voice "I appear to have fallen on my face."

Using the booster rockets on the front of his body, Omega lifts himself up and flips his body around so he's not so awkwardly placed on the ground. He then quickly comments in a nonchalant tone "Problem solved."

Rouge happily states as she turns to face the robot "Omega! Welcome back." To which Omega responds by saying "Voice recognized as Rouge the Bat…Activating primary boosters to assist in standing."

The robot pushes himself up, using his flattened feet in combination with his boosters to stand back upright. Omega then happens to recognize the gaping hole in his right arm as he turns his head to face it. Shadow comments in a quiet yet empathetic tone of voice "Sorry I had to do that to you Omega."

Omega turns his head to look at Shadow, saying in a semi-confused tone of voice "Shadow and Rouge? What are you both doing here?"

Rouge, surprised by Omega's words, says to him as she swerves to look at him "Huh? Don't you recall fighting Shadow just moments ago?"

The robot faces Rouge and says to her bluntly "Negative. A hard-reboot had to be performed to remove a foreign virus from my circuitry. All memories from the last twenty-four hours have been deleted."

Omega then glances at Shadow and asks in as empathetic of a voice as a robot like him could muster "Are you hurt, Shadow?"

The black hedgehog doesn't nod or shake his head in response to the question, instead redirecting it to the more important person in the room "You should be more concerned about yourself Omega. The doctor is the only one who knows how you work, and I doubt that he'll repair your arm."

The robot reassures his comrade rather quickly "This unit is capable of self-repair, I will be fully functional in no-time."

Shadow and Rouge both breath a sigh of relief at this news, and afterwards Omega states in a deadpan tone "Why are you both surprised. I am Omega, the ultimate E-series ro-"

Rouge interrupts Omega's attempt at a reminder of his strength by saying to him "Yeah yeah, calm down Omega, no one was doubting your might."

"Hardly Rouge…Eggman doubted all of ours." Shadow points out, which causes both Omega and Rouge to look at him with the bat in particular saying in surprise "Huh? What do you mean by that Shadow?"

"…The doctor has done what he always does. He underestimate us all, believing that none of us will ever stop his plans and that someday he will rule the world. Well if he wants to succeed, then he's only made his work harder than it should have been. He's made an enemy of the three of us here today, and now we will take the fight directly to him." Shadow says with the utmost yet calmest confidence.

Omega has no objections to this plan as he raises his left arm into the air and transforms it into a gatling gun, firing a few rounds of bullets into the ceiling as he states "Eggman shall be executed and I will rule supreme over all of his inferior robots!"

Rouge jokingly says towards the overexcited robot "Don't get too ahead of yourself there Omega." before she turns to face Shadow and says to him with a nod of her head "You don't need to worry Shadow, you can always count on me to be by your side."

The black hedgehog walks forward between his two comrades, giving Rouge in particular a thankful glance and nod as he takes the lead and says to them "Then lets get moving, shall we?"

Omega cocks his arm as he draws out his claws while Rouge swipes her right thumb in front of her face and smiles, exclaiming enthusiastically "Yeaaah baby! Team Dark is back together again!"

The robot says in a deadpan voice "The sappy comments can wait. Our target is Eggman." To which the bat replies with an equally joking response of "Glad to see the hard-reboot didn't change you Omega."

Looking at Shadow, Rouge says respectfully "Alright Shadow, lead the way." Unbeknownst to her as he prepared to give an order, the black hedgehog had cracked a tiny smile now that he was joined by the two people he would consider to be his friends, and with a simple gesture of his right hand forward he took off down the passageway that Omega had opened earlier with his firepower. With Rouge and Omega following close behind, the three set-off to find and take care of Eggman…

_Next Time: Lovestruck Battle_


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Wild Rose Ride**

After being dropped into a pit by one of Eggman's devious traps, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles plummet through the depths of the Egg Continent for a good few minutes, their descent being forcibly slowed by an updraft of wind coming from down below. Once a large crimson rim fan comes into view, Sonic looks at Tails and extends his right hand, saying to him and Knuckles "Come on guys, lets do a quick Triangle Dive to get out of here!"

The three heroes quickly grab hands and use the wind to slowly glide over towards a bright holographic blue platform off to the right. Upon landing on it, a red light grind rail appeared below and the platform moves along towards a predetermined destination. The sudden jerk of the platform pushes the heroes towards the back edge, but a sudden fence of hard light created by Eggman from afar keeps them from falling off.

Sonic is the first to rise, followed by Tails and then Knuckles after. The echidna rubs his head since it impacted with the fence, and then swings his left hand out beside him and comments "Darn that Eggman! First he takes over my mind and then drops us into a pit!"

The blue hedgehog snarks to his echidna friend "Good thing Eggman is such a fair player sometimes, otherwise he'd have dropped us into a spike pit." Sonic walks forward to the center of the platform as they are carried through a bright tunnel filled with neon lights on the walls that rapidly shift colors with each second.

Folding his arms and tapping his foot impatiently because of how slow the platform was moving, Sonic comments in a nonchalant tone of voice "The atmosphere is fitting for a party, but right now everything is so drab. Come on Egghead, toss down a few robots or something, we're bored down here!"

The taunts of the blue hedgehog are at first not answered, leaving Tails with enough time to mention to his friend "Personally Sonic, I prefer to breathing room right now. We just got done fighting Knuckles after all."

Sonic turns around and throws his hands beside his body, saying in a joking manner regardless of the echidna's position in front of him "Yeah, but that's implying that Knuckles made either of us break a sweat."

Knuckles, with an annoyed squint of his eyelids, scowls and jabs his right pointer finger at Sonic, saying to him in a bragging tone of voice "Oh come on now Sonic, you can't tell me that you didn't have SOME difficulty fighting me!"

The blue hedgehog smirks and follows along with Knuckles' anger by saying to him in a taunting tone of voice "No, you're right Knuckles…You were maybe just a little bit easier to beat than Shadow."

The red echidna, not exactly the brightest of the bunch, smiles confidently under the assumption that Sonic admitted he was right on something, but after a quick turn of his head to share his smile with Tails he sees the yellow fox letting out an unsurprising sigh and quickly realizes what his blue friend was saying. "HEY!" He exclaims in angered disbelief as he turns and looks at Sonic with a pumped vein on his forehead.

Sonic chuckles and glances over his right shoulder, looking back on ahead as he notices that the platform has barely made any progress since he called Eggman out earlier. Trying again, the blue hedgehog cups his hands in front of his mouth and exclaims "EGGGGGGMAN! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR US!"

"_Ugh, as much as it pains me to do so too…" _Eggman responds in a deflated tone of annoyance over a speaker system hidden out of sight as usual. _"What do you want you annoying blue hedgehog?" _The doctor asks, his voice sounding more refined than it did quite a few moments ago.

"You didn't bring us here to show us to your funky disco hallway. You wanted to settle things? Then send every last robot you got at all three of us! Its boring right here!" Sonic explains his point once more now that Eggman was assuredly listening.

"_Well too bad…You are going to have to deal with the ride for now. I used most of my usual robot resources to build the Egg Continent. You will just have to deal with what I got for now, Sonic." _Eggman chuckles a bit at the end of his sentence as he realizes how torturous a slow experience is for the blue hedgehog.

"This is cruel, even for you Eggman!" Sonic says, and though his words depict fury his tone is otherwise nonchalant about the whole affair. Eggman then shuts off the speakers, leaving the three heroes to their affairs while the platform of light keeps going onward.

Sonic turns towards Tails and Knuckles, brandishing a pointer finger at them and saying in a headstrong tone of voice "Alright guys, what say we bail this boring ride and make a run for the end?"

Tails interjects by mentioning to his friend "Not a good idea Sonic. That's super hot ionic energy. If we touch it, we'll be disintegrated."

The blue hedgehog argues his friend's warning by saying "But we could just run on either side of the laser to dodge the burning effect, right?"

"No Sonic, the heat surrounding the laser will burn us even if we stand beside it. The only thing protecting us right now is the platform we are on." Tails goes over some more semantics regarding ionic energy, which only causes Sonic to roll his eyes while Knuckles tilts his head in confusion.

"Face it Sonic, we have no choice but to wait." Tails speaks calmly to his friend, and the blue hedgehog responds with a gesture of indifference as he says to the yellow fox "Fine, whatever!"

Sonic walks off to the left and sits down, leaning his arms behind his head and crossing his legs as he points out to his two buddies "Just let me know when we finally get to the end of this boring ride."

The blue hedgehog dozes off without another peep, leaving Knuckles and Tails to converse between one another. First the two shrug at each other in regards to Sonic's behavior, and the yellow fox goes on to mention in a slightly jovial tone of voice "Hehe, sorry you got involved in all of this Knuckles."

Knuckles rubs the back of his head with his right fist knuckles, saying in a grumbling tone of voice "Ugh, don't apologize Tails, that darn Eggman is to blame. I got to actually share some of Sonic's sentiments here…I hate how we are just standing around doing nothing while Eggman lounges around laughing at our misfortune."

The echidna slams his fists in front of his body and scowls, saying in a tone of pure bravado "The sooner I get to punch that punk in his face and tear his continent apart piece by piece, the better I will feel about being captured!"

"If an opportunity arises to do so, I think I MIGHT be able to do something about the nuclear reactor without causing a feedback of energy that would blow this entire place apart. But I bet Eggman will do everything in his power to make sure I don't get anywhere near it. Personally, I kind of hope Shadow and Riku are ok out there without us." Tails states.

Knuckles flinches in surprise, saying to the yellow fox "Huh? Shadow is on here? …And who is this Riku person?"

Tails is about to answer both of Knuckles' questions, but he quickly notices that the red echidna is going farther and farther away from him rapidly. The yellow fox pauses and glances downwards at the platform, noticing that it's splitting in half with him stuck with Sonic while Knuckles is left all alone on his own half. "Knuckles, quick, get over here!" Tails exclaims to grab the red echidna's attentions.

Left to his own thoughts, Knuckles was oblivious to what was going on with the platform as he looked on ahead until Tails spoke to him, but by the time he reacts a large fence rises up on all sides of his body. Quickly the red echidna is trapped in place on the platform, while a similar hard light fence surrounds the platform Tails and Sonic are on. With all three heroes left with absolutely no means of escape, the yellow fox quickly turns around and with a snap of his fingers he exclaims "Sonic, wake up! Eggman pulled a fast one on us!"

The blue hedgehog opens his eyelids and quickly springs onto his feet, looking around him and saying to Tails in an almost bragging tone of voice "I told you we should have just ran on ahead!"

Tails turns to face Sonic with his eyebrows slanted in anger as he brandishes a pointer finger and proclaims "Oh don't get me started on this Sonic! We did the right thing here and you know-"

Before the yellow fox's sentence comes to an end, the platform reaches a sharp downward incline in the rail, which sends them rocketing towards a whirling light-filled tunnel, all the while Tails exclaims a dragged out "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" as both he and Sonic are sent careening against the back fence, split off from Knuckles' for the time being.

The two heroes are carried through a few yards of spirals rails and a couple of large loops, their bodies being flung back and forth against the fences without any end in sight as they are sent further and further into the depths of the Egg Continent. While Tails screams due to dizzying pain, Sonic pushes against gravity as best as he can and lets out a hollering cry of "WOO-HOO! FINALLY YOU DELIVERED A SWEET RIDE EGGMAN!"

The yellow fox, with his eyeballs being pushed into his skull, nonetheless turns to look at Sonic while saying to him in a stuttering, disbelieving tone as they are flung against the floor "I-I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'D FIND THIS F-FUN!"

"HOW COULD I NOT?! THIS IS MUCH BETTER THAN ANY OF THE RIDES IN EITHER OF THOSE CHEAPLY BUILT AMUSEMENT PARKS EGGMAN DEVELOPED!" Sonic responds with, which causes the platform to suddenly jolt to a complete stop and toss both heroes hard against the ceiling, where their bodies stick in place for a good long while.

Once Eggman has gotten over Sonic's insult to his magnificent creations and both Sonic and Tails have fallen off of the ceiling, the doctor reactivates the ride at full speed, sending both heroes hurtling towards a predetermined destination on this ride that seems to have no end despite how fast everything was going.

In another part of the Egg Continent, the good doctor was hard at work on his self-proclaimed ultimate machine like usual, his right hand being drawn away from his left cuff as he finished messing with the blue hedgehog on his ride. Letting out a distressed sigh as he glances down at the monitors and watches as the mysterious boy finishes destroying his Death Egg Robo while Shadow is still in the middle of a battle against the mind-controlled Rouge and Omega.

"Hmph…Of course my brilliant plan is once again starting to come apart." Eggman says with sheer indifference in his voice as he spins a wrench around in his left hand and turns to face his machine, brushing his right hand off to the side to command the platform the monitor were on to fly away for the moment as he goes to twist a loose nut on what appears to be the chest piece of his creation.

Smiling to himself, Eggman says in a confident tone of voice "Of course, that's the reason I have come up with multiple plans to keep that pesky hedgehog from reaching me in time, even with the help of each person he frees."

After tightening the bolt, Eggman flings away the wrench casually, his smile changing to a somewhat prudent frown as he thinks to himself "There is still the matter of that boy though…Hmmm…"

The doctor taps his right cuff to set up a line of communication with someone else on the ship, quickly saying to them "I need a status update, how is everything on your end? Yes, I saw how you managed to rile up Shadow there…You are lucky that he didn't end up blowing half the ship to smithereens in a bout of uncontrolled rage you idiot!"

Eggman's fury is met with a response he didn't like, as he goes on to state "Oh don't think you can talk back to me! Just hurry up and tell me how the last two are being converted!"

The doctor calms down a bit as news is given to him from the other side. He nods his head twice, murmurs a "Yes" a few times more than that, and then proceeds to mention with an eerie smile on his face "That is certainly good news. To be honest, I wasn't actually expecting you to get those two to…'help' us out, considering how tough their minds are compared to the others, but this just goes to show how potent the Hyper-go-on energy can truly be in capable hands."

"Its unfortunate that it will still be a while before they are ready to go, but remember, they are NOT to kill Sonic and the others. That honor shall be saved for me once I fuel my ultimate machine with the energy it needs. In the mean time, send as many of the other mind-controlled victims as you can to hold Sonic and the others off. I will get in contact with Orbot and Cubot and see if their machine is ready to go. Its been a pleasure to work with you, farewell for now." Eggman then signs off on the person he was speaking to, snapping his fingers off to the side to call upon the monitors once more so he could focus his attention onto Orbot and Cubot before he calls them up.

"Imbeciles, is that robot almost done?!" Eggman proclaims through the mic hidden away in his sleeve. The robots snap their attention towards their observer Metal Sonic, and Orbot in particular states "Y-Yes sir! It should be up and running in five minutes!"

"Good! You two are to deploy it at the predetermined coordinates to intercept that mysterious boy helping Sonic and his friends. I need to gather as much data on him as I possibly can just in case he might prove to be a hindrance to my plans." Giving orders to his two bumbling robot henchmen, Eggman then goes on to mention "Also, Metal Sonic shall no longer be observing you two. He needs to hurry on ahead to intercept Shadow before he can cause too much trouble."

Letting out a very relieved sigh, Orbot quietly states "Oh thank the maker, this whole matter has been WAY too stressful. If I had any skin, I'd be wrinkled for ages."

Eggman snarls and says towards his sarcastic orb-shaped creation "Make one more comment like that and I will put you back under watch in a heartbeat, Orbot."

"Bu-" "And that goes double for you, Cubot." Eggman quickly interrupts the other robot before he can even say a single word, and as the cubed robot scratched the top of his head in confusion and Orbot shrugged the monitor went blank as Metal Sonic went to issue the commands of his creator. Eggman snaps his fingers again to send the monitors off, and swiftly goes back to work on the robot in front of him…

Back with Sonic and Tails, the two have finally neared the end of this impossibly long rollercoaster-like ride, the platform grinding to a very sudden halt as the hard-light fence fades away and the two heroes are flung into the air back outside the Egg Continent. As both heroes tumble around high up in the sunny sky, Sonic lets out a joyous proclamation of "WOO-HOO!" while Tails lets out a drawn out groan and appears nauseated as he begins to fall first.

When the yellow fox is able to gain his bearings back, he quickly starts spinning his tails around and holds his hands down to catch Sonic. As Tails is jerked downward for a brief moment, the blue hedgehog looks up and says in a disappointed tone of voice "Come on, you just HAD to end it prematurely, didn't you Tails?"

"Better than you being a corpse on the ground…" Tails says as he descends towards the solid metal surface atop the buildings that they had seen from the landing platform earlier.

Sonic brushes off the yellow fox's concerns by saying in a nonchalant manner "Pffft, I've survived much great falls than this and you know it."

The yellow fox was about to talk back once more, but upon recollection he begrudgingly has to come to admit "Oh alright Sonic, I'll let you have that one."

The two heroes then land on stable ground as the hole they were launch from seals up shut. Looking on ahead as they stand beside one another, the heroes notice that the Final Fortress is still quite a way's off even though they were now far, far away from the landing platform. "Geez, Eggman really wasn't kidding when he called this place a continent." Tails says, the scale of this grand battleship starting to make him feel a bit dizzy as he thinks about.

"So umm…What happened to Knuckles?" Sonic asks as he looks around and notices a lack of the red echidna's presence in the area. Tails nervously scratches the side of his face and says to his friend "Knuckles got separated from us back on the ride. Who knows where he could have ended up."

Sonic rolls his eyes for a moment and says "Great, last thing we need is for Knuckles to go and punch stuff up. He'll probably blow us all to smithereens by activating that nuclear whatevermabob Egghead mentioned before."

Tails tries to be reassuring to his friend by mentioning "Relax Sonic, I told Knuckles about the device before we split. Not even HE would be dumb enough to strike that with his fists."

The blue hedgehog gives his friend a quick thumbs-up and mentions in a thankful tone "Quick thinking buddy. You saved our lives without even knowing it!"

The two heroes then look forward and notice two egg-shaped capsules have appeared out of the blue near the edge of the building's rooftop. The capsules open up as Tails gets a worried expression on his face like he did when Knuckles first appeared. And for once, Sonic has a bit of a look of surprise on him as the figure on the right capsule is revealed.

On the right is a girlish pink hedgehog wearing a red skirted dress and a red headband. She wields a yellow hammer that is roughly bigger than herself and has a distressed look in her eyes thanks to the Nega Hyper-go-on energy surrounding her head. The other person was a very young rabbit wearing an orange shirt and long floppy ears. Floating beside her is a little light-blue creature called a "Chao", that shared the misfortune of being mind-controlled alongside its friend.

"Even Amy and Cream are being dragged into this mess? Eggman really is getting out of hand with this…" Tails points out in an utterly melancholy tone of voice as he looks at the two girls and notices them preparing to fight.

This time around, neither mind-controlled victim says anything, signifying that Eggman was growing tired of trying to rile up either Sonic or Tails with words and simply wanted to have them perish at the hands of their friends. The blue hedgehog, in an odd display, says in a concerned tone towards Amy "Hey Amy, can you hear me at all? Come on, you and Cream need to snap out of this now!"

Neither girl responds, causing Sonic to scoff in a slight tone of anger as he reluctantly puts his fists up and says to Eggman as he's assumedly listening "This is despicable, even for you Eggman!" For once, the blue hedgehog's tone was serious, something Tails took great significance in hearing as he readied his arm cannon for a fight he'd rather not be involved in…

_Next Time: Difficult Decisions_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: A Four-Way Affair**

"Tails, I hate to ask you this, but could you try and knock Cream unconscious? I'm going to have my hands full dealing with Amy." Sonic says in a quickly spoken tone of voice before he charges forth at the pinky hedgehog for a fight he would rather just avoid.

"Sonic, I-" The yellow fox tries to make a point towards his friend, but as he watches the blue hedgehog jumping into a ball at Amy he lets out a sigh and smacks his forehead while saying "Why do I even bother sometimes…"

Tails turns to face the young rabbit, who brandishes her pointer finger at him and says in an aggressive tone of voice "Take him Cheese!" The command was given to the little Chao beside her, who angrily pumps his fists towards the air and lets out repeated exclamations of his species' name.

The Chao quickly rushes forward and rams his head into Tails' gut before the fox could raise his arm cannon to fight back. The blow to the yellow fox's stomach makes him stumble back a couple inches in pain as his breath is forced out of his mouth. The Chao then flies back to his master, who has flown forward with a rapid flapping of her ears so she could kick Tails right in his forehead.

Though Cream was young, as a rabbit her kicks were certainly strong, and Tails was swiftly knocked onto his backside a few feet away from where he was once standing. But thankfully the blow to his head knocked him out of his momentary state of windedness. Quickly planting his arm cannon against the metal floor, Tails fires a blast of air to push himself back onto his feet, looking at Cream as the once flying rabbit lands on the ground and points her finger twice at him again to send her Chao his way.

Cheese divebombs Tails from the sky with his foot extended outward, but this time the yellow fox was more than ready to counter the attack. The yellow fox holds his multifunctional arm cannon in front of his chest and taps a button on the left side of it. A pocket opens up in the top, and from a ray gun hidden underneath a barrier of hard light energy forms around him in a spherical green shape. The Chao's kick impacts with the barrier and causes him to rebound off of it.

Tails cracks a grin as he taps the button again to shut the barrier off, aiming his arm cannon up at the flying off Chao as he thinks to himself _"Two-uses of my experimental Bounce Barrier left…" _Pegging Cheese perfectly without a scope, the yellow fox fires an electrical sphere from the arm cannon.

However, Cream leaps into the air and swings her left ear at the sphere, breaking it apart with ease much to Tails' surprise. The airborne rabbit then flaps her ears up and down and whistles with the help of her fingers to grab the flying Chao's attention. Cheese quickly recovers and flies right by Cream's side, but in the time it took for the duo to get back together Tails had already launched a mine from his arm cannon underneath the two.

The mine opens up, sending a boxing glove upward that slams right into the young rabbit's gut. The strength put into the blow makes both ends of Cream's body lurch downward against their will, and though it was a necessary action Tails nonetheless grimaces at how painful it appeared to be. As the boxing glove retracts back into the mine, Cheese flaps his arms around in anger and quickly rushes straight at the yellow fox to get payback for his master.

With Tails lowering his arm cannon temporarily because of what he had done to the young rabbit, he was defenseless as the Chao got in front of his body and furiously swung his tiny arms at the yellow fox's body. A flurry of blows battered against Tails' fur, but they weren't really strong enough to make him do anything more than hold his left arm up to block a majority of the attacks. With the Chao sticking to him without end, the yellow fox thinks to himself _"Wish I could see how Sonic is faring…"_

Not long after rushing off to face Amy, the blue hedgehog finds himself standing right in front of her, using his all-too quick reflexes to swing his body around and dodge the blows of Amy's Piko Piko Hammer. Sonic takes a few steps back as he dodges these attacks, waiting for an opportunity to strike back even though the reluctance to do so wasn't doing him any favors in that regard.

"Come on Amy, what has Eggman got you thinking? Can't you at least say SOMETHING?" Sonic tries to break through to the pink hedgehog to no avail, as Amy looks at him with a vengeful scowl as she swings her hammer high above her body and brings it crashing down hard in front of her.

The blue hedgehog jumps back to the dodge the hammer as it slams against the metal floor and busts a hole right through it with ease. The lip of the hammer keeps it stuck in place in the hole for a good few seconds as Amy grunts to pull it out. Sonic folds his arms and gestures his right fingers at the pink hedgehog, saying to her in yet another failed attempt to grab her attention "Amy, there has to be SOMETHING on your mind, so hurry up and tell me!"

Amy rips her hammer out of the ground, tearing away a good chunk of the metal flooring in the process before she roars angrily and leaps at Sonic, pulling her weapon behind her as she descends towards the blue hedgehog. Using his speed to zip backwards out of the way, Sonic dodges a blow to the noggin that would have proven to be very fatal had it connected. The impact of the hammer creates a shockwave this time, as Amy holds back a bit of her strength seconds before it connects with the ground.

"Ok, anger…Anger is on your mind." Sonic jokingly comments on the matter as he stands a good distance away from the pink hedgehog. Letting out a hesitant sigh, the blue blur removes his arms from his chest and says to Amy "Can't believe I'm doing this, but I'll try and go easy on ya Amy."

The pink hedgehog's eyelids twitch in anger as Sonic says this, and after roaring once more she leaps into the air and swings her hammer outward in a near 360 degree spin. In a mere couple of seconds, a barely visible tornado flies straight at the blue hedgehog, causing him to freak momentarily as he thinks to himself _"Shoot! I forgot Amy could do that!'_

As the suction of the tornado prepares to drag him inward, Sonic turns around and tries to zip off, kicking his feet rapidly against the ground to work against the pull of the hedgehog-made force of nature. But the blue blur fails, and is dragged inside of the tornado a moment later. Spinning around at the speed of sound, Sonic is kept trapped inside of the tornado until Amy lands on the ground, slams her hammer against the ground to vault herself upward, and uses that very hammer again to hit the blue hedgehog straight against his gut.

The tornado's wind breaks apart and Sonic crashes hard against the floor back first, his body leaving a perfect indent inside. Amy starts coming down ready to deliver another powerful blow with her hammer, but the blue hedgehog quickly opens his eyelids after they had been forced shut by the impact and springs out of the indent of his body. Once landing on the ground Sonic curls up until a ball and revs himself to gain speed rapidly, launching into the air underneath the range of Amy's hammer before he collides straight on into her body.

The blow to the front of Amy's body dislodges the Piko Piko Hammer from her grip, and as it spins around and lands on its side atop the ground Sonic pushes the pink hedgehog through the air until gravity drags them both back down. By that point, the blue hedgehog bounces off of Amy's body and lets her fall on her back with minimal damage done due to the impact. Sonic lands on the ground and unfurls from the ball-like state, skidding backwards a couple feet as he slams one hand against the metal floor.

"Alright, that should take care of the hard part…" Sonic comments on the removal of Amy's hammer from her grasp as he positions himself upright, and then he goes on to whisper to himself as the pink hedgehog starts to lift herself up off the ground "Hopefully Tails isn't having any trouble with that Chao…"

Back with the yellow fox's ordeal against the young rabbit and her persistent Chao, Tails managed to finally push Cheese away from him with a brush of his arm cannon forward. From there the yellow fox holds his weapon out and blasts the Chao with an up-close electric sphere. Though Cheese was rather strong for a Chao, a surging of electricity through his tiny body was more than enough to knock the little guy unconscious against the floor.

The purple fog faded from around his head as he laid face first upon the cold metal, but Tails scoffed embarrassingly as he realizes that he hit Cheese too hard with his attack and had accidentally left him in a period of unconsciousness longer than what he wanted. "I really got to learn how to better adjust the output…" Tails comments to himself as he lifts his arm cannon in front of his face and looked it over, forgetting about Cream's presence for quite a few moments before the young rabbit exclaims in a shocked tone of voice the name of her Chao friend.

The yellow fox looks up and sees as Cream lands on the ground and rushes over to Cheese's side, where the rabbit picks him up and holds his somewhat smoking body in her arms to carefully examine him to see if he was ok. The Chao barely moved, making Tails once again feel a bit of regret for his actions as he said to the young rabbit "C-Cream…I didn't ki-"

Cream cuddles her Chao against her chest for a couple seconds, a single teardrop appearing from her right eye that lands atop Cheese's head. Tails goes quiet before his sentence was done as he felt something grim in the air around him. Cream lifts her head up after placing Cheese against the ground, her eyes dripping with tears as she looks at the yellow fox angrily.

Nervously scratching the back of his head while a melancholy expression is placed on his face, Tails says to himself "…Well, this is about to go downhill…"

Sure enough, Cream leaps at the yellow fox in a burst of anger, yelling as high as she could as he kicks down upon the fox's arm cannon as he attempts to hold it up and defend himself. The kick strikes the weapon enough to break off the metal plating on top, which makes the arm cannon start to malfunction at a rapid pace now that the vulnerable wiring has been exposed. With this malfunction, Tails is pushed off to the right against his will as the cannon fires a burst of air.

He lands on his side, skidding along the ground for a few seconds before the air stops pushing outward from the end of the cannon itself. The yellow fox reaches for the back of his arm cannon to try and pull it right off, but the glitches present within cause the weapon to clamp to his arm and make it currently impossible to take off. Tails lets out a quiet remark of "Oh man…" in disbelief as he tries to push himself back onto his feet before Cream can strike him again.

The young rabbit was out of sight though once he did stand back upright, causing Tails to swerve his head around as a brief jolt of electricity emerges from his arm cannon and makes him pause in place. _"I need to activate the emergency shutdown before this becomes too detrimental…" _Tails thinks to himself as he lowers his head for a brief moment and reaches towards the red button hidden deep between the many wires with his left hand.

Before he can accomplish this task, Cream makes her appearance once again, dive bombing straight from high in the sky with her head first into Tails own head. The yellow fox's head is pushed downward slightly as his position is made sloppy and he starts to stumble backwards, mumbling to himself in a slurred tone of voice "No Shonic…The answer is not Egghead…"

But with his great intelligence, Tails quickly plants his feet against the ground and shakes the impact off, looking forward as Cream lands on the ground before then looking down upon his malfunctioning arm cannon and seeing how the front was glowing with blue electricity. Taking a chance on this light, the yellow fox cocks the arm cannon in front of him and supports the underside of it with his left hand, aiming it at the rabbit as she charges straight at him and saying in an apologetic tone of voice "I hope this doesn't knock you out for too long…"

The electric sphere fires from the arm cannon, its size being understandably larger than any of the other projectiles Tails had launched before due to the glitches within the weapon. The sphere consumes Cream and electrocutes her for a good few seconds, freezing her body in place above the metal…floor…The yellow fox's eyes widen as he realizes that he had just ushered in his own defeat alongside the young rabbit's, for as Cream's feet make contact with the ground the excess of electricity pushes through the metal floor and strikes Tails before he can leap into the air to dodge it all.

With both young beings struck with electricity, it doesn't take long for them to start falling towards the ground. Cream falls first, the purple fog vanishing from around her head as she lands face first against the floor. Tails however uses his arm cannon as a crutch to catch himself in the nick of time, recognizing that the lesser amount of electricity flowing through his body allowed him to retain just enough consciousness to save himself from falling down.

Thankfully, the electric jolt through his body also happened to shut down Tails' arm cannon, which made the yellow fox breathing a sigh of relief as he says to himself "Well…That's the best I could hope for…" Though he did feel a bit said that he couldn't back Sonic up in his fight with Amy, since the electric shock took quite a lot out of him.

However, the blue hedgehog currently had his situation under control. As Amy rose up off the ground and stood on her feet without a hammer in hand, Sonic said to her "You've been disarmed Amy. Now I know you aren't a total bonehead, so if you can hear me at ALL, try and hold back the urge to charge at me without the hammer."

Sonic's faith in Amy's listening skills goes in the completely opposite direction as the pink hedgehog charges right at him. The blue hedgehog shrugs his shoulders and zips briefly to the left, holding his foot out to trip Amy up and cause her to take damage as she falls against the floor and tumbles forward.

The blue hedgehog, with a somewhat serious expression on his face, goes back to folding his arms in front of his chest and tapping his foot against the ground as the pink hedgehog ends her roll near her hammer, and upon standing up she picks it up and turns at Sonic with hands grasping tightly around the handle of the weapon.

Sonic sighs for a moment and then folds his arms backwards, ready to put an end to this irritating ordeal with one last move. Picking up speed quickly, the blue blur zips himself around Amy's body in a circular fashion to slowly create a powerful whirlwind. The pink hedgehog tries to swing her hammer around to land a blow on the blue blur, but with enough momentum kicked up he has long since left the edge of the whirlwind as Amy is carried up through the center until she reaches the top of it.

The blue hedgehog, trusting in Amy's strength, leaps to the top of his whirlwind and performs a forward spinning kick straight into the pink hedgehog's gut as the force of the twirling cage prevents her from holding her hammer in protection. With the precise blow creating a shockwave that splits the whirlwind apart in all directions, Amy is sent plummeting against the metal floor below, where the impact is more than enough to finally push the purple fog off of her head.

Sonic lands on the ground softly in front of Amy's fallen body, saying after letting out a tiny sigh "Can't believe I had to do this…"

The blue blur then turns to the right and sees Tails supporting himself with his arm cannon while Cream and Cheese are left unconscious on the ground in front of him. "Tails!" Sonic says in a concerned tone before he runs forward to help his buddy out.

Once in front of the yellow fox, Sonic extends his left hand to give him a stable way to stand up. Tails looks up at his friend and says to him "Thanks for the offer…" but after taking a couple more breaths he pushes himself onto his feet without any assistance before he goes on to mention "But I'm fine now."

Tails and Sonic look back and forth at the three unconscious bodies, with Sonic in particular having a semi-disgusted look on his face as he points out to his yellow buddy "We can't let this go on any longer. Eggman is getting WAY out of hand with this."

"No kidding. This probably isn't even the end of his mind-control victims." Tails says in a regretful tone of voice as he scratches the side of his head while putting his arm cannon away.

"We need to forget about Egghead for the moment and find out where he's making all this Nega Hyper-go-on energy, and bust the place up!" Sonic smacks his fist against his opposite palm as he ends this sentence off, showing a great deal of enthusiasm towards defeating Eggman's plans in the process.

Tails nods his head in agreement, mentioning to his true blue friend "But what about Amy and Cream?" Sonic gives the yellow fox and unworried thumbs-up as he responds with "Eh, those two can handle themselves just fine once they wake up. Besides, they aren't in any danger up here now are they?"

The yellow fox scratches the side of his head and admits to his friend "No…I suppose you're right. We can't just stick around here."

With this discussion said and done, Tails and Sonic quickly turn around and make their way for the opposite end of the building rooftop. They both leap up, but before the blue blur does so he glances back at Amy for a moment and cocks a smile.

Once the dynamic duo had vanished, Amy's eyelids began to crack open, her mind perfectly free from the control of Eggman as she lifts herself up slowly and says in a girly yet squeaky groan "Ugh…Was I hit by a truck or something?"

Once on her feet, it doesn't take long for the pink hedgehog to notice Cream's unconscious body and run over to it after putting her right hand in front of her mouth and gasping in shock. Cheese wakes up at this point and goes by his friend's side, letting out worried cries of "Chao…" as he pokes the side of the young rabbit's body.

"Oh Cream…Who did this to you?" Amy says as she kneels down beside the young rabbit and waits for her to wake up. It takes a minute or so, but Cream begins to open her eyelids softly.

Amy lets out a sigh of relief as the young rabbit recognizes the pink hedgehog quickly. Lifting her head up as Amy backs away a bit to give her some space, Cream asks in a puzzled manner "Miss Amy? What are you doing here?"

Cheese quickly flies and wraps his tiny arms around his friend's neck, catching the young rabbit off-guard for a moment as she recognizes his presence and kindly says "Cheese! You're ok!"

The two friends share a hug with each other for a good few seconds before Cream focuses back on Amy, who says to the young rabbit as they stand on their feet "I was going to ask you that Cream. I don't even know where we are."

Amy looks around to try and get a good idea of where they might be, and all it takes is a quick glance at the Final Fortress in the distance for the pink hedgehog to tightly clench her fist in anger and declare "Eggman! So he's the one responsible for this!"

As Cheese floats beside her, Cream walks up behind the angered Amy and says with her head tilted to the right "Miss Amy…Don't you remember anything about your kidnapping?"

The pink hedgehog, with a scowl on her face says to the young rabbit "No Cream, of course I don't. Do I really need to? That bald headed idiot kidnapped us and did who knows what to our minds!"

The young rabbit sighs and says in a nonchalant tone of voice as her Chao friend moves away from her ears "I think we were actually fighting Tails and Mr. Sonic while under Eggman's control…That's what Cheese is saying to me anyways."

Amy's mind snaps at that moment for two particular reasons, as she clenches so hard with her fists that her bones were on the verge of breaking. Fired up and angered beyond all belief, the pink hedgehog swings her Piko Piko Hammer in front of her in an instance and exclaims "EGGMAN YOU JERK! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU USED ME AND CREAM TO FIGHT MY BELOVED SONIC!"

The pink hedgehog then turns to face Cream and says to her with the rage of a thousand suns backing up her anger "COME ON CREAM, LETS GO FIND THAT EGG-SHAPED LOSER AND BEAT HIM UP FOR THIS INJUSTICE!"

The young rabbit is then grabbed by her right hand and dragged through a run by Amy, all the while Cream looks at Cheese and says quietly with a sigh "Oh well Cheese, guess we won't be going home anytime soon…" The female duo then leaps off the building ready, with the pink hedgehog ready to exact revenge on the egg headed scientist…

_Next Time: Who you gonna Call? _


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Team Chaotix**

Flung into a winding rail path by one of Eggman's nefarious traps, Knuckles the Echidna hurtles around inside of a hard light cage, unable to get his bearings on the area around him as he is swung back and forth against the walls and left screaming in a frightened manner as his heart pumps rapidly against his chest. Knuckles cycles through the underground of the Egg Continent for a good few minutes before he is finally thrown out of the cage and into another room.

Knuckles tumbles along the ground a few feet away from the exit of the roller coaster until he ends on a glowing glass red circle in the center of the room. He is left on his back, his vision left dizzied as he stares up towards the four glowing yellow lights on the ceiling. Lifting his head up and shaking it around against his will as he tries to recover, the echidna slurs out from his mouth "Blurb blah gah some boo bah…"

Recovering enough of his sanity to do a hard shake of the head and get himself stable, Knuckles rises to his feet and brushes the front and back of his legs off with his gloves. With an annoyed scowl on his face, the echidna punches his knuckles together and lurches forward, staring off into the distance as he says to himself "Darn that Eggman, where did he send me to now?!"

Knuckles looks around and notices a severe lack of both Sonic and Tails' presence in the room, and a quick look back reveals that the passage the echidna was shot through is quickly being sealed off by two steel doors. All that kept this room illuminated from then on were the light above, but the moment the echidna took a step forward off of the button the lights on the ceiling went offline.

"Huh?" Knuckles, for as dim-witted as he was, was able to quickly put two and two together and stepped back in order to step on the red glass, which in actuality was a button that activated the lights above. The echidna folded his arms in front of his chest and tapped his right foot against the ground, thinking about his current situation as hard as he could, which unfortunately for him meant he gave up on thinking rather quickly and instead went back to frustratingly pounding his fists together while growling in place.

"Sonic and Tails got separated from me, that's obvious, but now I'm stuck in this creepy underground room without a permanent light! Eggman's vile actions just continue to pile up!" Knuckles exclaims furiously.

The worst part of this whole ordeal for the red echidna was that there was nothing he could punch at this moment. Sure he could probably put a dent in the ground, but there was no satisfaction to gain from doing so. To make matters worse, a screech of static fills the confines of the room, causing Knuckles to slap his palms against his ears to drown out the sound until it is replaced with something much, MUCH worse.

"_Well well, it seems I have trapped a RAT inside of my cage." _It was Eggman, taunting the red echidna for his entrapment in an arrogantly spoken tone. Knuckles furiously brandishes his right pointer finger above him while his veins pop in the right side of his head.

"Eggman you fiend, where am I?!" Knuckles tries to pressure the infernal doctor for an answer, but the cackling that echoes throughout the room afterwards only brings more fury to the echidna.

"_I think I was clear enough when I was said you are in a cage you impudent buffoon!" _Eggman bluntly replies, his voice insinuating that a great deal of pleasure was being taken in listening to the anger of the red echidna.

"Fine then, I'll just have to punch my way out of this so-called cage then!" Knuckles slams his fists together twice and smiles confidently, but is swiftly interrupted by Tails' earlier warning _"Remember Knuckles, don't go too crazy, we don't know where the nuclear reactor is." _

The red echidna's confidence then flattens instantly, leaving his fists hanging limp in front of his body as he whispers to himself "…You have got to be kidding me…"

"_Ohohoho! Your rough and tough behavior will get you nowhere this time around you pesky little echidna! Not only will you be unable to see where you are going if you move past that spot, but the room is lined with a gap that will send you hurtling towards spikes! So one misstep in the blindness and-" _Before Eggman finishes his long-winded explanation off, Knuckles raises his fist into the air and slams down on the button below his feet.

The glass shatters apart instantly, and the button below fizzes with electricity as Knuckles raises his insulated glove upward and confidently steps forward with the lights staying on above him. "Heh, you forget Eggman, I'm friends with the one guy who is smarter than you!" Knuckles states as he folds his arms against his chest.

"…_YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO FIGURE THAT OUT YOU IDIOT!" _Eggman exclaims with a great deal of fury in his voice, but after a moment of groaning to himself in annoyance the doctor goes on to mention _"…Fine, but now that you have light you still need to figure a way out. Meanwhile, I will be dealing with your friends up above."_

Eggman signs off, leaving the dim-brained echidna to his own devices in this lit up room. Knuckles looks around and notices a large rectangular doorway leading to a passage in the distance that was across the gap. "Huh, I could probably glide that…" The echidna comments.

But before he walks forward and tries that, he recalls how there was a suction effect that dragged Sonic, Tails and himself through the pipes earlier. Knowing Eggman's diabolicalness, Knuckles snapped his fingers and said with a scowl "Never mind, that'd be too easy."

Knuckles looks down and happens to notice a bit of metal lifting up from the rest of the fairly evenly placed flooring. "Huh, now there's an idea…" He comments as he kneels down and lifts up on the metal flooring, peeling it away from the rest of the ground and pushing it forward bit by bit as he walks atop the disabled wires underneath. Finally, once he reaches the end of the metal flooring, the echidna does one more push to create a bridge towards the door on the other side.

Slapping his gloves together on a job well-done, the echidna wastes no time in dashing across the bridge to head into the passage, his fists trailing beside his body as he runs. His mind wanders towards what Eggman said earlier in regards to his friends, and with a scoff he thinks to himself _"Sonic, Tails…You two better not be screwing around up there…" _

Knuckles keeps running until he reaches an ascending ramp lined with red metal railings, at which point he looks up and sees a large glass plate in the ceiling that shows that storm clouds are slowing passing by in the sky. "Tch, either Eggman's headed to a stormy part of the world or things are about to get rather hectic…"

The echidna looks back down and runs forward up the ramp until he enters yet another part of Eggman's enormous battleship. It was a triangular room with three different colored walls of yellow, green and purple. The colors were bright and noticeable even without any lights in the room, and it was clear by the way they were split down the middle that they were doors leading to somewhere. As the floor behind Knuckles closed up and trapped him in this room, he looked around and commented "Don't tell me that I'm stuck in a maze now!"

His face was wrought with panic as he considered this possibility deeply, but with a brush of his arms in front of his body he took in a deep breath and said to himself "Calm down Knuckles…This is just like hunting for pieces of the Master Emerald…"

Knuckles blinks a few times and nervously comments "…Only without any shards inside of Eggman's ship…Ugh, had I just taken a moment to ask Sonic if he had the Chaos Emeralds on him, this would probably be a heck of a lot easier…" The echidna rubs the back of his head and sighs, but as he does so the doors around him depressurize all at once, putting him on-guard in an instance as he leaps back and puts his fists up.

One light pops up in front of the doors one after the other as three egg-shaped capsules are carried out of the passageways. Knuckles, having been inside one, recognizes what's about to happen and comments with an angered growl "Eggman's sending more mind-controlled people out to face me, huh? Alright fine, I can take anyone on, even if it's three against one!"

The first egg-capsule pops opens near the yellow door, and after the green fog inside departs a young bee wearing a bright orange jacket and a pilot-like helmet that had two holes for his yellow and black striped antenna to poke through.

The second capsule near the green door opens up, revealing a bulky bipedal crocodile with a strength possibly rivaling that of Knuckles' own. The crocodile wore stylish black leather shoes on his rather short legs, a golden chain around his neck, and a pair of headphones near his ears.

When the final capsule opened up, at first Knuckles couldn't see who was contained inside it, and for a rather good reason though. Shrouded by the shadows behind him was a purple chameleon with a lone pointed yellow nose curved near the end, a set of ninja-bandaged gauntlets and knee braces, and a long yet thin and curled tail. The chameleon, with a serious demeanor that didn't appear at all affected by the purple fog, draws a shuriken into the grasp of his right hand and turns his body sideways while glaring at Knuckles.

The echidna, itching for a fight despite knowing these three people all-too well, spoke with a voice of anticipation "The Chaotix eh? I've always wanted to fight you three, but we never crossed paths that one time. Ok, let's see what you got!"

The chameleon, Espio, flings his shuriken straight at Knuckles, but the echidna wasn't in the mood for fighting the swift chameleon at the moment. The echidna dodged the shuriken without realizing it was thrown by turning and running straight at Vector the Crocodile. The crocodile raises his hands up as Knuckles throws both of his fists out at the same time, catching them in his grasp and using most of his might to keep the echidna from advancing any further.

Knuckles, with feet pressed against the ground, tries to push Vector back even an inch, but fails as his position isn't well-suited for utilizing his strength to the best of his ability. While the echidna is kept in place, Charmy the Bee comes in from behind and stings Knuckles in the back. The pain from the sting causes the echidna to let out a brief scream as he pulls his hands back and rubs on the spot where he was stung, glancing over his shoulder as Charmy flies away and gaining a scowl before exclaiming to the runaway bee "That hurt you pesky insect!"

Before Knuckles can turn around and go after the bee for harming him, Vector uses his snout to launch the echidna into the air, causing his body to tumble around helplessly as the crocodile whistles over to Charmy to turn back around. The bee, recognizing the whistle sound, flies back to Vector and curls up into a ball that is swiftly surrounding by a protective yellow shield. The crocodile grasps the shielded bee in his mouth and leaps up, thrusting his head downward to launch Charmy like a heavy projectile at Knuckles' body.

The echidna is carried downward quickly by the momentum of the projectile, and once he collides with the metal floor he is covered by flaming explosion. Charmy flips out of the explosion unharmed but with the shield no longer covering his body. Knuckles, though a little battered from the attack, is quickly able to get back on his feet after taking a moment to rub the back of his head and scowl. "That was a dirty blow…" He comments once he is standing upright again.

Knuckles charges straight at Vector again, this time unintentionally dodging an invisible Espio's attempt to kick him straight in the side of the head. Blowing so quickly underneath Charmy's body that the bee is sent flying away, the echidna pulls his right fist back and aims right for the crocodile's stomach, swinging with all of his might despite Vector placing both of his hands down to protect himself.

The punch connects with the palms and blows Vector back across the ground a good few feet, slamming the tip of his tail against the now shut doors behind him but otherwise dealing minimal damage to the crocodile. Knuckles then ducks underneath another sting from Charmy, exclaiming with delight "Ha! You think I wouldn't catch onto your tricks?! I'm not that stupid you know!"

Knuckles then flips around and jumps into the air while he's moving, delivering a swift yet light uppercut to the bee that knocks the youngling away. The echidna held back enough of his power to ensure that Charmy would only be knocked unconscious once he landed on the ground.

Once on the floor after using his uppercut, Knuckles is punched right in the back by the crocodile and sent flying straight into the yellow door in the distance like a shot forth bullet. His body punctures the metal door and sends him into the shadowy room behind it. But mere seconds later, the door is blown off by a single punch from the echidna, who then proceeded to tear up the cart that brought Charmy's capsule into the room and throw it straight at Vector.

The cart naturally misses as Vector leaps out of the way of the attack. Knuckles then leaps and glides at the crocodile quickly, dropping himself from the air moments before touching him to slam his fist against the ground to create a heated shockwave that launches the crocodile into the air and allows Knuckles to follow up by leaping diagonally upward and swirling around so quickly that his body is coated in a tornado of fire as he heads towards Vector.

But before the crocodile is struck, Espio dispels his invisibility below the echidna by summoning forth a tornado of wind and leaves around his body. This removes the flames around his body and traps him within the tornado for two seconds before he's launched away. Vector still lands on his back, but the chameleon takes over for him by leaping towards the wall to the right of him with great agility and sticking to it before he takes a shuriken out and flings it at Knuckles.

One of the spikes on the shuriken punctures through the fabric of the glove between two of the echidna's fingers and pins his hand down against the ground once he lands. Rapidly firing more shuriken down to pin the rest of Knuckles fingers down, Espio then leaps off of the wall and gracefully lands in front of the echidna's fallen body before drawing a kunai and preparing for the final blow on his opponent.

But with a strength that defies his restraints, Knuckles pulls himself off the ground and kicks himself onto his feet, where he thrusts both of his fists forward with his gloves torn apart and hits Espio as hard as he could as the kunai was halfway swung. The chameleon is sent flying towards Vector, who was rising up like a zombie at the command of Eggman, but Espio collides into him and send him flying back against the metal wall. The impact is mainly centered around the head, which manages to knock both the crocodile and the chameleon unconscious swiftly.

Knuckles, feeling as though he had secured victory over his opponents, pumps his fist into the air and then thrusts the right one forward slightly while smiling, saying triumphantly "1-2-3 and they are down for the count! Can't believe it was that easy!"

The echidna then looks around and assumes that a way out of the room would be opened up to him now that he had defeated the mind-controlled Chaotix, but not open doors or lowering platforms appeared in front of him as he looked around. Knuckles scowls and exclaims towards the ceiling "HEY EGGMAN! I beat your trap and your mind-controlled victims, so let me out of here!"

The doctor doesn't respond, but instead the calmly spoken chameleon wakes up from his unconsciousness quickly and states to the hot-blooded "Will you keep it down, you're giving me a migraine."

Knuckles looks down at Espio as he stands up in front of his partner and brushes his gauntlets off, looking at his surroundings without moving his head before commenting as he hears Vector grumbling behind him "It seems as though we made it aboard Eggman's battleship…"

The crocodile sits upright and rubs the back of his head, saying in a grumbling yet somewhat high-pitched tone of voice "We did? Refresh my memory, how did we manage that?"

Espio responds by mentioning "…Hmm, Eggman captured the three of us when we tried to infiltrate one of his underground bases, but-"

"You three were mind-controlled. Trust me, it's kind of been a common thing around here today." Knuckles interjects, causing Vector to look at the red echidna and say to him in a puzzled tone of voice "Hey you're that Knuckles guy…What in blue blazes are you doing 'ere?"

Knuckles cockily says "Stopping Eggman and taking all three of you down while you were mind-controlled by the lunatic. All in a day's work if I do say so myself."

Espio glances at Vector, who says as he stands up on his feet "Well, I guess that explains those strange capsule Eggman stuffed us in after he knocked us out."

The crocodile then faces Knuckles and says to him "So I'm guessing if you're here, Sonic is here as well, right?"

Knuckles nods his head and responds by mentioning "Yep. And Tails and Shadow are here too. Though I kind of got separated from Sonic and Tails just a few minutes ago…"

Vector swings his right fist in front of his body and declares "Well for freeing us from our mind-control, I could probably launch you so you can punch through the ceiling and maybe catch up with Sonic and the others."

The red echidna smiles at this favorable development and mutters out "Well alright then." Knuckles then walks forward as Espio steps aside, with Vector allowing him to step on his snout so he could launch him upward. Knuckles thrusts his right fist out and punches a whole right through the ceiling, flying high above as the Chaotix are left to their own devices.

Vector looks down and is suddenly spoken to by the hyperactive Charmy, who woke up just seconds before Knuckles was sent flying. "Hey Vector! You're finally awake, you silly slacker!"

The crocodile reacts furiously towards the young bee, saying in a disbelieving tone "Charmy you idiot, don't pretend like you weren't also asleep!"

The bee snickers in delight, but before him and the crocodile shared in a brotherly spat Espio interjects in his all-too serious tone of voice and asks "Vector, why didn't you tell Knuckles about how Eggman's isn't working alone here?"

Vector stops growling at Charmy and turns towards the chameleon, saying in a more professional tone of voice "Because we don't know the full situation yet Espio. For all we know this could be another 'Metal Sonic' problem. We need to go searching for more information. Besides, G.U.N. told us not to spill any beans to Sonic or any of his friends or they'd half our pay!"

Espio responds by mentioning "Fair enough. Then where should we go from here?" To which Charmy bravely flies in front of Vector before he can get a word out and says "Oh! Oh! We should go through that tunnel over there!"

The crocodile angrily brushes Charmy aside with his right hand, exclaiming to him "I'm the leader here Charmy, so I'll decide where we should go!"

Vector then looks forward, and after a few seconds of deduction he realizes that the passage opened by Knuckles' fists is pretty much the only way to go. Hesitantly growling, the crocodile is met by Charmy's slyly spoken "Weeeeellll Vector? Where are we going?"

Slapping the front of his head, Vector points forward at the tunnel and says "We should go through that tunnel over there…" in a less than enthusiastic tone of voice.

Charmy lets out a cry of "Woo-hoo!" before flying right off towards the tunnel. Vector slowly heads towards it after saying to Espio "Come on, we'll probably find something juicy on this whole Eggman thing this way…Knowing our luck." The chameleon responds with a nod of his head, and slowly joins his fellow Chaotix down into the darkened tunnel…

_Next Time: Metal Sonic's Last Stand_


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Metal Sonic's Revenge**

After breaking Rouge the Bat and E-123 Omega from their mind controlled states, Shadow has reformed Team Dark and decided to take the battle straight to Eggman. At the moment, the team is grinding atop three separate rails through a lava-filled chamber that is helping to power up the entire battleship. There are waterfalls of lava pouring into the lake below the grind rails, but the heat that rises up doesn't melt the metal thanks to protected barriers placed underneath them by the quick-thinking doctor.

Shadow looks towards a couple of pods attached to the ceiling and quickly says to his robotic friend "Omega! Shoot down those pods!"

Omega obeys with as much enthusiasm as a robot could muster, as he exclaims "Affirmative" and raises his arms towards the ceiling, converting them into gatling guns that repeatedly fire against the bottom of the pods as he passes underneath them. The pods detach from the walls and crash into the lava, leaving explosions behind Team Dark as continue across the grind rails. "Well, that was exciting." The robot comments in a deadpan tone of voice as he turns his arms back to normal.

As Rouge tosses some of her hand-made heart-shaped bombs towards some more pods off to the right of her rail, she says to Shadow "You sure this is a good idea Shadow? Didn't you say the doctor threatened to activate a nuclear device if you didn't do things his way?"

Two more explosions go off behind them as the black hedgehog comments with his hands hung low on both sides of his body while he grinds "The doctor has said nothing since I freed you both. He is likely preoccupied with Sonic and the others."

"So we strike while he's distracted. That's good enough for me!" Rouge swings her body forward and focuses back on the mission as the end of the grind rails are in sight up ahead. On a platform colored in charcoal black are a few of Eggman's red and orange Egg Pawns, which are carrying miniature pistols with thick barrels. They notice Team Dark approach and quickly raise their guns, but are mowed down and turned into scrap by Omega's gatling guns.

Once on land Team Dark keeps up their momentum and runs through the explosions created by the destruction of the Egg Pawns, and they cross a long hallway of platforms set between spouts of lava that are rising into pipes in the rocky ceiling above. At the end of the platforms is a large generator that helps filter the lava through the Egg Continent. It whirred mightily with a glowing Eggman insignia on the front of it, but all it took was for Shadow to jump at it and hit it with a swift kick to shut it off.

Using the position of his kick to launch himself over the top of the rounded generator, Shadow lands between Omega and Rouge as a warning siren goes off across the entire chamber. The suction in the pipes shuts down entirely, and the excess lava is drained into the lake below their feet and causing it to rise noticeably in seconds. "Shadow, the lava will reach us in fifteen seconds." Omega comments in his analytical tone of voice as he glances at the black hedgehog.

"Then we'll just have to get out of here in ten…" Shadow calmly states as he looks at the set of platforms rising up from the lava in this state of emergency. Running and jumping in unison beside one another, Team Dark scales the platforms as their momentary presence on each one causes them to sink back down, meaning there was not a single room for error as they raced for the top.

With the iron doors engraved with Eggman's face on the central lock opening up, Team Dark lands on the lip of black metal where the door once was. But Rouge loses her balance and tumbles backwards towards the rising lava while letting out a cry of shock. Omega quickly flips around and fires off his right arm to grab onto Rouge's right leg, hanging her a few feet away from the top of the lava for a mere moment before pulling her right back up onto solid ground.

Once Omega lets go of Rouge, the bat quickly flips back onto her feet and says in an appreciative tone as her heart tries to regain its normal beat "Thanks for the save Omega."

The robot turns around and starts to walk-off with Shadow while commenting "Don't mention it." With the three members of Team Dark making their way around a curved corner soon afterwards as the door seals in the lava behind them, Rouge taps her right ear and is surprised when she hears a bit of static coming in from a tiny device she has attached.

"Oh, why now…" Rouge comments in a flustered tone of voice as the air conditioner kicks in through this crimson metal corridor. Shadow turns to face Rouge as he continues to slowly walk on ahead, asking in a puzzled tone "Is something the matter Rouge?"

The bat moves her hand away from her ear and gestures at Shadow, saying to him with the utmost honesty "Eggman must be blocking out all attempts at outside communication. My comm. Link to G.U.N. HQ isn't working."

Shadow then asks "Were you supposed to report in to them by now?" To which Rouge responds with "Actually, I was supposed to call them hours ago. They said that if neither of their contacts managed to reach them by 00:00 hours, they would mobilize a battle force for whatever Eggman was planning to unleash."

The black hedgehog notes the terminology in Rouge's sentence and says to her "Contacts? So they didn't just ask us for help then."

The bat nods her head in response and goes on to mention "Sadly, I have no idea who they hired to help. At first I thought it was Omega, but they would have told me if that was the case."

Omega interjects into the conversation by mentioning "That is correct. Before I was captured, I was pursuing Metal Sonic and the two capsules he was carrying to Eggman's base."

Shadow says in response to this "So you're starting to remember what happened Omega?" To which the robot nods with a creak and points out in a deadpan tone of voice "As I said before, this unit is capable of self-repair…That includes memories purged by outside forces."

"So that explains who knocked us both out." Rouge points out, and this line of thought is something Shadow agrees with until Omega goes on to mention "Negative. Metal Sonic was too far away from the base at the time frame of your captures according to what you have told me."

Shadow and Rouge exchange a glance at each other, and Rouge in particular comments "Then we are facing more than one enemy here. And whoever they are, they are willing to cooperate with Eggman's insane plans."

"That would explain the doctor's uncharacteristic behavior so far." Shadow brings to Rouge and Omega's attention, and he specifically turns to the robot and says to him "Omega, if Eggman were to speak again, would you be able to tell if he was the real one or not?"

Omega, speaking with full confidence in his abilities, responds to Shadow's question with "Affirmative."

The black hedgehog then turns to look at Rouge and says to her "That explains why Eggman hasn't spoken to us since I saved you both."

The robot proclaims afterwards "It doesn't matter how many allies Eggman has gathered! I will destroy them all and reign supreme!"

Rouge counters her friend's remark by mentioning "We'll deal with that eventually. Right now, I think we should try and find a way to destroy the jamming array."

"That's not a bad plan Rouge. There is a large laser field surrounding the Egg Continent, so if G.U.N. attempts to launch an attack on this there will be many casualties unless we tell them that we have safely infiltrated the ship." Shadow says.

"Will both of you quit talking." Omega states with a tone of growing impatience as he raises his right hand into the air and continues on now that he has grabbed his teammate's attention "We need to move on, deal with Eggman before he can escape, and destroy all of his allies!"

"Calm down Omega, we'll get to it eventually." Rouge says in a joking manner. The robot replies in an unamused tone of voice "Don't keep me waiting."

Omega turns around and starts to walk back down the corridor, and with nothing else Shadow and Rouge needs to say they join their robotic ally a few moments later. Team Dark eventually reaches a door with a code panel off to the right of it, and the bat stands in front of it and examines it while commenting "Hmm, I should be able to crack the code if you give me a few-"

Omega takes his right arm and transforms it into a steel hammer, walking forward and thrusting it hard against the center of the door, busting it down almost instantly and flipping his arm around as he turns it back to normal. Rouge flinches as the door goes down, and as she turns to face Omega the robot glances at her and says "I told you to not keep me waiting." He then walks into the room with his teammates following close behind.

Now inside of a dark laboratory of sorts, Shadow notices hundreds of capsules planted throughout the room in rows upon rows. They were all egg-shaped similar to the ones his teammates and himself were trapped inside of, but they from a glance at the glass windows they were filled with liquid instead of gases. There were no noises at all as Team Dark took a moment to examine the room, being guided only by the bits of light emerging from the capsules as they split up to cover more ground.

"Don't tell me Eggman is trying to create more Shadow Androids." Rouge comments as she looks up at the glass windows and notices that she isn't tall enough to peer into them. Omega follows up on Rouge's remark by commenting "I detect no mechanical life forms inside of these pods. All subject matter is organic, but not of this world."

Omega activates his X-Ray vision on the capsules while Rouge says to the robot "Wait, what do you meant by 'not of this world' Omega?" With curiosity getting the better of her, the bat uses her wings to fly up and get a better look at the capsule's contents. Upon getting a clear glimpse of what was inside however, her eyes widen in disgusted shock as she taps her right fingers against her mouth.

Inside of the capsule was an alien-creature with grey and red skin that appeared to be in a developing stage of it's life. It was slowly growing two-toed arms and two-clawed legs, but the eyes had yet to form on it's head. Rouge quickly flew in a line to check the other capsules and saw more of the same creatures, and at the end of the line she dropped to the ground and said to herself quietly "This can't be…Eggman's cloning Black Arms soldiers in here."

The bat, wondering if Shadow had yet figured out what was in the capsules, ran forward to try and find him. However, Rouge did not need to concern herself with the previous matter, as she stops a few feet away from the black hedgehog as she finds him standing still in front of a particularly large tube filled with an eerie purple liquid. Inside of the tube is a creature large enough to be considered the leader of the black aliens Rouge saw in the pods. The creature had two horns of flesh on its head on both sides along with three closed eyes, and it wore a mythical robe that obscured everything below the neck.

Rouge slowly walks up to Shadow from behind as she recognizes the creature inside of the tube, saying to him in a slow yet comforting voice "Shadow…Are you ok?"

The black hedgehog was quiet, far more than he usually was as he stared up at the creature in this tube. He had made certain that this monstrosity had been silenced in the past, even though it was thanks to his blood that he was given life. To see that Eggman was starting work on what appeared to be a clone of that monster angered Shadow immensely. But instead of letting out any of his anger, Shadow tightly clasps his fist and calmly states to Omega as the robot walks up behind him "Omega…You have my permission to destroy everything in this room."

The robot raises his arms into the air and transforms them into their gatling states, but before he gets to work on annihilating the laboratory Shadow raises his right hand and says to him "…But leave this one to me."

Omega states coldly "Affirmative" before he turns towards the capsules and fires upon them with all of his might, blowing them all up and killing the cloned Black Arms soldiers inside. Shadow says to Rouge as he holds his right hand out and starts to create a Chaos Spear in his palm "Rouge, try and find a way out of here…"

The bat decides to let Shadow and Omega deal with Eggman's horrifying experiments without saying a word, and wanders off to check for an exit nearby. In the mean time, the black hedgehog looks up at the cloned Black Doom and casually flings a Chaos Spear right through the center of the tube, impaling the monster in the chest and pinning it against the wall past the other side of the tube. The liquids within the tube pour out, but Shadow leaps away from them and lands behind Omega as the robot finishes destroying the capsules.

Letting out a relieved sigh, Shadow is called to by Rouge "I've found the way out you two! Come on, let's get back to our mission!"

Shadow and Omega share a glance at each other for a moment, the black hedgehog giving him an appreciative nod for his help before they go on ahead to join up with Rouge at a set of thick, open metal doors that will finally lead Team Dark back outside of the Egg Continent. The group walks up a short staircase onto a long metal expanse that was behind the many buildings Eggman had stacked together.

Dark storm clouds have formed overhead, but haven't spread rain across the Egg Continent as of yet. The lasers bordering this mighty vessel still exist, signifying that Sonic has done nothing to deal with them as of yet. Rouge comments as she looks upon the laser field "Huh, Eggman's really covered all the bases when it comes to his defenses."

"If the laser defense grid is still up, then Sonic must be goofing off as usual." Shadow is quick to point out in an all too displeased tone of voice. Rouge responds with a little more faith in her voice "Or he hasn't found the shut-off switch yet."

In fact, the very moment Rouge mentions this, the laser grid around the battleship shuts down, causing to state in a merry tone to the black hedgehog "See? He knows when to get the job done sometime Shadow."

"Hmph…" Shadow remarks calmly, but upon looking up towards the sky his eyes temporarily widen as he notices a gargantuan swarm of G.U.N. Beetles and Bipedal mechs swarming the Egg Continent from all directions. "Looks like G.U.N. was waiting for a chance to strike." Shadow comments afterwards.

The self-defense grid activates along the Egg-Continent, causing hundreds of turrets to take fire upon the robotic forces gathered above Eggman's ship. The sky is filled with many explosions, but the G.U.N. Troops were too busy swarming to a single location behind where Team Dark currently stood to deal with the turrets. The turrets stop firing within seconds as the forces of G.U.N. vanished from sight, causing Rouge to comment "Huh? Where are they going? Eggman's the other way!"

The bat rises up into the air to try and figure out what has grabbed G.U.N. attention, but before she gets too far she's zapped in the back with a bolt of electricity that makes her fall towards the ground. Shadow catches her before she lands on the metal floor, and though the electricity winded her for a moment Rouge is able to stand upright once the black hedgehog puts her down. Team Dark then turns forward and as a bolt of lightning flashes overhead they see Metal Sonic standing there with his right claw descending beside him as the last traces of electricity fade from the tips.

Omega immediately moves ahead of Shadow and angrily exclaims to the robotic copy of Sonic "Metal Sonic, the favored creation of Eggman! You have been given enough chances to defect from his control, and now I shall destroy you once and for all!"

Metal Sonic says nothing. Not even Eggman speaks through his robotic creation like he usual would when the robot was silent outside of his presence. Instead, Metal Sonic chillingly rises into the air as raindrops begin to patter across the Egg Continent. Far ahead of where both Team Dark and the robotic doppelganger were, the mouth of the Final Fortress opens up and releases a series of broken battleships at the two forces.

Metal Sonic shatters the battleships apart with many bolts of lightning, gathering all of the parts around him in a spherical whirlwind as he works on creating a more powerful body for use in combat. Coils and sharpened plates are fused together to create six elongated spider legs that are swiftly attached to the main body, which looks very similar to a heavily-armed mechanical dragon. The metal bits compress together to create a dark-blue hue befitting the doppelganger, and within seconds the long curved tail covered in spikes forms along with two arms consisting of a sharpened claw on the right and a hand with four elongated spikes on the left.

Metal Sonic himself began to morph into a gigantic head consisting of two crescent shaped eyes with glowing red pupils that attached itself to the top of the body and had three silver streaks glowing across each of the top quills. The final part of the transformation saw Metal Sonic growing sharp silver protrusions across his backside, and when that process was done the creature born letting out a terrifyingly gruesome roar that scattered any excess parts in all directions.

"This again?!" Shadow exclaimed in disbelief at the lengths Eggman was willing to go to ensure that he would remain untouched as he somewhat recognized the form Metal Sonic had taken.

Omega declares towards Metal Sonic as he readies his gatling guns for battle "It doesn't matter how many forms you take Metal Sonic, I will destroy them all!"

"Yeah? Well you might want a little help on this one guys!" A familiar voice calls out to Team Dark from behind, causing Rouge to briefly turn her head around and see as Team Chaotix has appeared atop the tallest building behind them. The three drop down beside Team Dark, with Rouge commenting in a surprised tone of voice "The Chaotix?! What are you three doing here?!"

Vector cocks a smile at Rouge and says to her in response "Same thing everyone else is doing…Trying to get back at Eggman for mind-controlling us all!"

Shadow glances over at the Chaotix and says to them calmly "Hmph…So for once we share a common purpose. Once we deal with Metal Sonic, then Eggman should be next."

Vector looks towards the familiar mechanical monstrosity standing before him and pounds his fists together while Espio draws out a shuriken and Charmy rapidly swings his fists around ready to battle. The crocodile comments "Then what are we waiting for? Lets show this chump Metal Sonic a thing or two, huh boys?!" Espio and Charmy respectively respond with "Right" and "Alright-y!" while Team Dark face Metal Sonic ready to take him down for good…

_Next Time: Madness Commences_


	13. Announcement

My apologies if there are no updates over the next few days. My birthday is tomorrow and I'm going to be getting Tales of Symphonia Chronicles...An oddly convenient thing considering what will come after this story, but that's for another day. Either way, I want to invest a lot of time into the game for a few days, so my time writing will be kept to a minimum since I also have a job to worry about.

Hate to leave you with a cliff hanger to the battle with Metal Madness V2...Or Arachno-Metal Madness...Or whatever you want to call him, but sometimes I do need a break from writing to just play some video games or other stuff. In the mean time though, go ahead and comment on what you like and dislike so far about this story. I haven't received any input besides one fan liking the story, but I'm curious to know what criticisms you have of this.

Remember, I'm not forcing you to review. Anyways, have a good week and I shall you see you all again later!


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Untamed Madness**

"Do you really think you can win by changing into a monster again?" Vector declares, swinging his right pointer finger at the mechanical beast before giving orders to his two companions "Charmy, take to the sky and try to find a good spot for our robot ally to attack from. Espio, see if you can sneak up from behind and cut off one of his legs!"

Espio nods his head and swings his right arm to the side, becoming invisible and zipping forward to try and get between Metal Sonic's legs, only for the creature to scan the ground below him and detect Espio's movements. Then Metal Sonic swipes it's claw down at the chameleon, hitting him hard and sending him flying towards a large metal support beside his body. Vector is surprised by this, stating as he swings his right arm out in front of him and points at the beast "Well, that's new!"

While Charmy is flying into the air and swing his head back and forth to try and find a solid platform, Metal Sonic lifts his left hand up and fires off two of his metal fingers, using the ropes to wrap around the bee's body and quickly pull him towards his gigantic form. Metal Sonic immediately goes on to zap Charmy with electricity through his fingers. The bee cries out in agony, but Vector is quick to react to his youthful partner's pain by leaping at Metal Sonic and throwing a mighty punch against the palm that makes the metallic monster release his grip on Charmy.

Charmy is left in a bit of a daze because of the attack, but shakes it off and turns towards Vector as the crocodile lands on the ground and leaps away from the mechanical monster. In a thankful voice the bee says "Hehehe…Thanks Vector."

The crocodile proclaims to his young companion "Save it for later Charmy, we need to cover Espio while he recovers and tries to attack the legs again!"

Vector then reaches into one of his pockets and pulls out a piece of gum, putting it into his mouth and chewing it rapidly in preparation for another attack. Meanwhile, Charmy thrusts his stinger at the mechanical beast, sending tiny stingers out at his glowing green chest core to deal some minimal damage as they bounce off of the surface. Metal Sonic responds by throwing his pipe fingers at the Chaotix and launching flames from each one in a wide spread, forcing them to back off to avoid getting scorched.

While the flames are scorching the metal floor in spite of the rain, Shadow uses Chaos Control to warp in front of the creature's face so he could kick him straight up into the chin, cracking his head upward against it's will and breaking his control of the flamethrower for a few seconds. Meanwhile, Rouge runs underneath Metal Sonic and plants a couple of bombs on his underside, landing on the ground and dashing to the right between the legs as they go off.

The force of the explosions pushes Metal Sonic's entire body into the air, leaving his arms flailing in place for a few seconds before he collapses right on his backside, his legs suspending straight towards the air as Omega takes advantage of his fallen form to leap into the air and activate both his propulsion system along with his missile launchers on both arms. Metal Sonic's smoking underside is promptly bombarded by hundreds of medium-sized missiles as Omega's launchers whirls around in the cuff of his arms.

Shadow warps onto the ground beside Vector and looks at Metal Sonic's fallen body, saying in a calm tone to himself "That should hurt him…"

The crocodile smiles as he finishes chewing the gum in his mouth, saying in a somewhat muffled tone to the black hedgehog "But it's not enough to finish him." Vector then leaps into the air as Shadow glances at him, puckering his lips together and blowing gigantic pink bubbles filled with an explosive substance at the pillar of smoke and fire created briefly from Omega's barrage. Metal Sonic is then covered with a few more explosions, but the combination of smoke and rain makes it difficult to tell just how much this assault was affecting the titanic monster.

Once everyone is on the ground and the smoke starts to die down, a click is heard from each of Metal Sonic's legs, and in an instance they all flip around at the same time to prop the monster upright once more. Then the neck detaches from the main body and flies to the new front while the tail flips around to the back. Once everything is back in order, Metal Sonic swings his arms out and makes his eyes glow through the remaining smoke in an eerie flash of red.

With no sparks coming from the creature's underside, it was clear that Team Dark and Team Chaotix hadn't been able to break through the body with their combined efforts. Vector snaps his fingers in a partially disappointed manner and says "Well that's a bummer! Hey Shadow, think you ca-" Before the crocodile's comment reached the black hedgehog's ears, Vector turned and noticed that Shadow had already rushed at Metal Sonic the moment he got back onto his feet.

The black hedgehog lowers his speed just enough that he is able to bait Metal Sonic into swinging at him with his claw, at which point Shadow leaps into the air as the beast tears apart most of metal floor with the bottom of the claw. Once high enough the hedgehog curls into a ball while Rouge flies behind him, using a swing of her right foot to launch Shadow straight into Metal Sonic's head.

Shadow's impact dizzies Metal Sonic for a moment as he pulls his claw up, but the damage to the cranium is increased further as upon bounding into the air the black hedgehog is spiked back down by a swift dive kick from Rouge. This time the impact dents the monstrosities' head, causing his body to destabilize for a moment as the black hedgehog lands on the ground in front of him.

Metal Sonic loses control of his legs and tumbles about for a few seconds as his head spasms uncontrollably, something that Omega is not one to waste a chance on as he throws out his gatling guns and rapidly fires upon the mechanical monster's chest core. The piercing bullets eventually break the core apart, deactivating it for good and minimizing Metal Sonic's overall strength in the process. The robot boasts "This is far too easy. Kind of disappointing."

Vector slaps his head as Omega says this, swaying his arms in front of his body as he proclaims "Now why did you have to go an' say that you tin bolted idiot?!"

Sure enough, Metal Sonic starts creaking back to life, only there is a sharp difference in his behavior compared to before. Instead of silence, Metal Sonic declares in a booming, guttural voice that sounds similar to the real Sonic _"Finally, I am FREE from that scientist's control!" _

The implication of the metal monstrosities' words was that Shadow's attack managed to shatter whatever chip was allowing Eggman to keep Metal Sonic under his control. The monstrosity looks down at both teams, saying in an utterly overjoyed tone of voice _"I suppose I should thank you meddlesome heroes for freeing me…But it was because of you that I was forced back under that foolish doctor's control in the first place!"_

Metal Sonic wastes little time in using both his arms to puncture the ground on both sides of his body, causing the area around him to quake as his arms glow light-green and pure pulsating energy flows into his body. Emerging from his backside are multiple pipes that stick into the ground and siphon that very same energy from a chamber below the current battlefield.

The energy pumps into Metal Sonic's body, filling inside of tubes that push outward from the top of his body. It was raw nuclear energy that now added on to the monster's power, and once Metal Sonic had siphoned enough of it his body radiates with a nuclear green aura that pierces through the heavy rain surrounding him and makes the rest of his body look darker thanks to the glow. _"This is nothing compared to the power of Chaos, but it shall do for now…Once I have burned all of you to nothing, I will deal with my loathsome copy!" _

Metal Sonic thrusts his left hand in front of him, channeling some of the nuclear energy into his front two fingers to fire out streams of pure power at Shadow and Vector. As the two leaped out of the way, the nuclear energy melts right through the metal ground, increasing the tension that the crocodile felt in regards to this battle. "Hmmm…Espio is going to need to change targets."

However, while Vector was a little more worried, Shadow calmly said with a light smile on his face "Well, things just got more interesting…" He then goes on to say to both of his teammates "Rouge, stick to the air and focus on the head! Omega, try and destroy the tubes!"

The bat looks at the black hedgehog and says to him "And what will you do Shadow?" To which Shadow responds by warping in front of Metal Sonic's chest with Chaos Control and hitting him with a hard punch, using his shoe boosters to keep himself in mid-air as the monstrosity stumbles back a couple of feet.

Metal Sonic looks down at Shadow and wastes no time in trying to snatch him up in his claw, only for the black hedgehog to use Chaos Control to warp out of the way. But the mechanical monster remarks on this technique by saying to him _"Your technique is irritating…But you forget that I learned how to use it during our last encounter as a free individual!" _

The doppelganger thus brightens the intensity of his eyes and swings an arm up to activate Chaos Control, which bathes everything but himself in grey while Shadow is kept suspended in mid-air with a shocked look on his face. Metal Sonic first raises his left hand into the air and fires off a few tube-shaped missiles at Rouge and Charmy, hitting them and causing them to be encased completely in crystal that will drag them out of the sky the moment time is unfrozen. He then uses his claw on Omega, scratching him straight through the chest diagonally.

Finally, Metal Sonic ends his assault by reaching up for Shadow and pinching him between both of his claws right as Chaos Control comes to an end. He failed to hit Vector though, because the crocodile had vanished from sight before Metal Sonic could do so. Omega's circuits are broken thanks to Metal Sonic's attack, while Rouge and Charmy are left trapped in crystal on the ground. Shadow feels a bit of pain in his body thanks to Metal Sonic's claws as he is pulled in closer.

With the ultimate life form at his mercy, Metal Sonic says to him in a boastful manner _"Can't free yourself with Chaos Control when you're focused on the pain, can you? A pity, but I know what you are capable of when pushed to the brink of defeat. I will thank that foolish scientist for that much at the least…" _

Metal Sonic presses harder on Shadow's body, but the black hedgehog's insane durability makes it so that he does not exclaim in pain even as he hears a couple bones crack. _"You are not my copy, but I will take great pleasure in destroying you all the same…Shadow the Hedgehog." _

The monstrosity raises his left hand into the air, pushing all the fingers together as he readies his nuclear energy for a combined attack that will disintegrate Shadow into nothing more than atoms in his grasp. The black hedgehog shows no fear in the face of death, for if there's one thing he could count on is his ability to survive such dreadful encounters.

Sure enough, Metal Sonic suddenly surges with electricity across his entire body that causes him to swing his right arm out and jerk his other one down beside himself, letting go of Shadow in the process and flinging him towards the metal support that Espio was sent flying against earlier. However, the black hedgehog catches himself against the support by pressing his feet against it, flipping off of it and landing on the ground as Metal Sonic tries to regain control of his body.

Looking beneath the monstrosity, Shadow sees Espio zipping away after he had stabbed a kunai into the underside, which as it turns out had been weakened enough by the earlier assault for the chameleon's efforts to prove successful. While Metal Sonic is kept busy by the attack to his circuitry, Vector appears near Charmy's crystal cage and looks at Shadow, gesturing at Rouge's crystal with one hand while he shatters the young bee's cage with his other hand.

The black hedgehog gets the hint and uses Chaos Control to warp over to Rouge and free her with a roundhouse kick to the crystal. The bat lands on her feet and looks a bit dizzy, but otherwise was unharmed. Looking at Shadow, Rouge says to him in an appreciative tone "You are really good at this Shadow."

By the time this sentence was at an end, Metal Sonic had regained control of his functions and let out a powerful roar the echoed across the battlefield before proceeding to declare as he looked down at the Chaotic _"You three are a nuisance beyond compare. Your organic lives will be deemed unnecessary once I create my robot kingdom!" _

Vector crosses his arms and bluntly replies with "Yeah yeah yeah, like I haven't heard this from you before." The crocodile follows up on this remark by leaping into the air with both Espio and Charmy, taking both members and putting them into his mouth as they curl up and cover themselves in protective shielding. Vector launches them both at Metal Sonic's chest, pounding him repeatedly as the protected Chaotix rebound back into the crocodile's mouth after each impact.

Metal Sonic feels a bit of pain from this assault, and inevitably blocks the attacks by holding his right arm in front of his chest. Vector stops and lands on the ground with Espio and Charmy ending up right beside him. The three Chaotix members split up, with Vector attempting an attack on the underside while Espio and Charmy go for the legs. _"You will not touch me again!" _Metal Sonic proclaims in angered disgust.

In an instant, Vector is blasted with electricity from the underside, throwing his body straight out from underneath Metal Sonic while the plates on the monster's legs open up and fire two electric nets that hit and pin Charmy and Espio the ground, where they are shocked for a good five seconds before it shuts off, leaving them rather winded underneath the nets as Vector lands on the ground in front of Metal Sonic and notices both of his comrade's conditions. "Charmy! Espio! Darn it all, you'll pay for this Metal Sonic!" The crocodile shakes his fist at the monstrosity afterwards.

Metal Sonic responds by bending it's head down and proclaiming _"A god cares little about the petty vengeance of a flesh born creature." _

Before the monstrosity can launch an attack on Vector, his face is bombarded by a series of missiles from Omega, who had finally managed to recover from the earlier malfunctions brought on by the scar across his chest. The robot boasts as he finishes off his assault "God-like being has been subdued with missiles. This has been a successful attack."

While Metal Sonic recovers from the assault, Shadow says to Vector "Hurry up and free your comrades. We'll hold him off for you!" The crocodile gives an appreciative thumbs-up to the black hedgehog and runs off to free Charmy and Espio.

Rouge points out to Shadow afterwards though "Shadow, we can't keep holding Metal Sonic off. Eventually we are going to have to stop him."

"…" Shadow thinks for a moment as Metal Sonic starts to awaken from Omega's missile barrage. The hedgehog looks specifically at the nuclear energy tanks on the monster's back, saying to Omega as the robot walks up beside him "Omega, do you think you can break those tanks?"

The robot boasts as he whirs his arms in place "It would be my pleasure Shadow. But I would need some back-up so I won't be blown away."

Shadow gestures towards his robotic ally and points out "Use missiles to ignite the nuclear energy." Which makes Omega nods his head in response. Rouge is a bit confused by Shadow's plan, and asks him promptly "What are you up to Shadow?"

The black hedgehog says to her as Omega readies his attack "Without the Chaos Emeralds we can't hope to destroy Metal Sonic as he is now…Not by ourselves anyways. But if Omega breaks the tubes and ignites the nuclear energy…"

"It should be enough to blow Metal Sonic to smithereens!" Rouge enthusiastically ends Shadow's sentence with those words, and the black hedgehog nods his head in agreement.

Vector, having gotten the rest of the Chaotix freed and on their feet, says to Shadow loudly "You need a distraction Shadow?! We can provide one for your robotic pal, no problem!"

Turning to his comrades while pulling out a gigantic microphone stand from out of nowhere, Vector proclaims "You ready to put on a show guys?!"

Espio pulls out a strum guitar while Charmy whips out a drum with two sticks in each hand. Metal Sonic, having overheard everyone up until this point, proclaims as he whips around ready to burn the Chaotix to cinders _"You shall do nothing!" _

The Chaotix play a tune with their instruments, loudly filling the air with a painful noise that pierces Metal Sonic's sound receptors and causes the monster to spasm as his circuitry cracks in the wake of the music entering his body. Shadow and Rouge naturally plug their ears for the moment, while Omega floats in the air with missile launchers aimed at the nuclear energy tanks and comments to himself in a sarcastic tone of relief "Good thing I can shut off my audio receptors…"

Omega unleashed a barrage of missiles upon the nuclear energy tanks as the Chaotix ends their terrible song. Shadow and Rouge dash out of the way while the Chaotix do the same. The missiles that consume the back of Metal Sonic's body blow up the tubes, igniting the nuclear energy and dwarfing the mechanical monstrosity in a powerful blast that tears apart his body in an instance as he exclaims deeply in pain. The force of the explosion blows Omega back through the air, and the ensuing shrapnel from Metal Sonic's body scatters across the Egg Continent while missing everyone entirely.

All that remains of Metal Sonic is the head, which dissolves back into his normal body, which spasms in place at the edge of a massive hole created by the explosion. The metallic doppelganger is covered in electricity, his malfunctioning body failing to move even slightly as he states in a distorted manner _"W-Why c-a-ca-can't I…Iiiiiiiiiiii….I am ultimate…Uitimate li-liliflifeform…S-s-soooonic the H-ed-ddddddgehog!"_

Metal Sonic then falls flat against the ground, his body shut down by the damage greatly inflicted on him. Team Dark and Team Chaotix glance at him, with Vector walking up and making sure that the robot was down for the count before looking at his two comrades and mentioning "Alright boys, we got the job done!"

Charmy thrusts his fists into the air while declaring "Woo-hoo! That creep didn't stand a chance" to which Espio replies stoically with "It wasn't THAT easy Charmy."

Vector turns towards Team Dark, giving them a thumbs-up and saying in a cheerfully thankful tone "Hey! Couldn't have done it without your help!"

Rouge is the only one who responds in regards to the thanks, as she gives the big crocodile a wave of her right hand and says "That I can agree with."

Shadow is in a contemplating pose at the moment, with his arms folded against his chest while his eyelids are shut tight. Once he opens them up though he says to the Chaotic "If it's not too much to ask of you three, could you head down below and shut down the nuclear reactor Metal Sonic got his energy from?"

Vector smirks at the black hedgehog and asks "Any particular reason why?" To which Shadow replies with in a calm tone "The doctor has set up the nuclear reactor to detonate if he grows tired of our presence here. Now that we dealt with Metal Sonic, I can only imagine his patience won't last much longer."

The crocodile looks rather surprised at what he was told, and even the normally stoic Espio flinches for a moment. Vector responds without hesitation "You need a nuclear reactor disarmed? How hard can that be? Come on boys, let's get this job done!"

The Chaotix nod their heads at each other and run at the hole made by the explosion, bypassing Metal Sonic entirely as they leap down below. With those three out of the way, Shadow turns to Rouge and says to her and Omega "Unfortunately, this is where we part for now."

Rouge looks at her ally in a surprised manner and asks "Huh? Why is that Shadow?" To which the black hedgehog replies with "You and Omega need to find the communication jamming array and disable it before G.U.N. loses too many people."

The robot protests to this plan, saying as he pumps his fist towards Shadow "I am going to deal with Eggman, Rouge can handle herself just fine."

"While I don't doubt it Omega, it would be for the best if you covered her back while she disables the comm. Tower. I'll deal with Eggman in the meantime." Shadow states.

"…Very well Shadow." Omega says with only a hint of hesitation in his voice, and after Rouge looks at her friend for a moment she says to him with plenty of faith in her voice "We'll get our job done quickly, and then come back to help you out against Eggman. You can always count on us for that, Shadow."

The black hedgehog turns away from his two allies, holding his arms beside his body as he says in regards to Rouge's comment "Thank you, Rouge, and good luck."

Omega and Rouge then head off behind Shadow's back, allowing the black hedgehog to look over at Metal Sonic's unconscious body. Thinking about what Metal Sonic was likely up to while under Eggman's control, the black hedgehog dashes over to his body and quickly picks it up, thinking that he might be able to pull up surveillance footage as he looks towards the Final Fortress in the distance, leaping away from the battlefield towards the mighty fortress to confront Eggman mere seconds later.

_Next Time: G.U.N.'s Ultimate Weapon_


	15. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: The Launch of ARK-Diablon**

Quite a few minutes back, Riku can be seen walking through the darkened metal corridors of Eggman's multi-building complex atop the Egg Continent. He has been stuck in the darkness for a while after dealing with the doctor's Death Egg Robot, and he felt as though he was making little progress in the way of getting out. As he traveled along the corridor, he kept a hand on the wall and continuously looked around, using his powers to ensure that he wouldn't be ambush by any turrets or something else equally deadly.

When he wasn't thinking about how he was going to escape this area, Riku was considering what he saw back in that make-shift museum of Eggman's past creations, more specifically the Egg Wyvern's presence. The doctor already noted that he had found it's presence suspicious, which made it a dangerous element in this scenario that the madman had concocted…But so long as Eggman learned nothing about the full extent of the boy's capabilities, Riku could at least take a breath and relax.

"_This place is a maze…" _He thinks to himself to avoid drawing the attention of Eggman over the intercom for now, and with a swing of his right hand out beside his body Riku summons for a bright flame to light the way up ahead. Revealing this one element didn't matter too much since he had already used fire earlier on, but it's presence here really didn't help Riku see if the end of this corridor was coming up ahead. In fact, all the teenage Overlord could see as he continued to walk was corners that turned to the right.

"_Hmmm…" _He murmured in his mind as he turned the corner and walked forward. There were no downward slants in the metal flooring, so he wasn't descending into a new area. With the light of this flame as his guide and the corners never seeming to end, Riku quickly put things together and commented in his head _"So Eggman trapped me in an endless corridor…It's probably shaped like a square also…" _

With these facts in his mind, Riku now tasked himself with finding an end to his entrapment. _"Knowing Eggman, he probably put one door on each side of this area to make it harder to get out. One door will lead me back to the 'museum', two will probably lead to a trap, and the last one should get me out of here."_

Not wanting to chance falling into a trap and wasting time that would be better spent trying to catch up with Sonic and the others, Riku decides to subtly use his electric powers to detect any wires, since obviously Eggman would connect them to any traps he may have set up. But to the boy's surprise, there wasn't any wires to be found in the general vicinity, indicating that the doctor's traps were either not electric powered or he just simply hadn't set any up at all.

"_Guess that makes sense…He didn't expect someone to have to come here after all…" _Riku thinks to himself. He then pauses for a moment and thinks about the room's setup, and with something bothering him he quickly pulls his hand away from the wall and goes to the other side of the corridor, placing both of his hands against the steel wall with enough force to create an echoing sound on the other side. Smiling, the teenage Overlord applied heat to the wall through his palms.

The heat melted the metal down in seconds, opening the way to another passage that led to a bright light in the center of this winding complex. Pulling his burning hands back beside his body, the teenage Overlord walks past the molten metal and heads to the light. Once there, he examines the area around him and notices three other passages. After that, he looks up towards the faint light and sees that it is coming from a pipe in the ceiling. Using his flight, Riku rises up through the pipe to escape Eggman's square-shaped maze.

Once past the tube, six pie-shaped plates press inward to trap the teenage Overlord in this brightly lit room, only for everything to blackened as the light shuts off in an instance. _"You've got to be kidding me…" _The boy states in disbelief in his head as he uses what little light was left in his vision to look around and see where he had ended up. But instead of being kept in the dark for long, three steel plates rose up around the boy, revealing the outside of the Egg Continent once more along with a large device that flowed brightly with red energy across hundreds of directions.

The red energy shared the same energy flow as the laser fence surrounding the mighty battleship, leading Riku to think that destroying this device would disable it. _"Wait a second…Why would Eggman put me through a series of events that would lead me to the one thing keeping us trapped on his ship?"_

Though Riku assumed that there was a trap in the vicinity with how oddly convenient this discovery was, he nonetheless drew his sword and wasted little time in cutting the device down the middle with the sharpest part of his blade. Electricity and energy builds up around the machine as the laser fence short-circuits outside, and in seconds an explosion that the boy protects himself with a very thin shield of air covers this rather miniscule room.

The teenage Overlord keeps the shield up until the smoke clears from the room, at which point he is able to look past the windows and see that the laser fence has been soundly disabled. There was no trick about it either, which puzzled the boy considering Eggman's usual attempts to deceive his foes. Putting his sword away, Riku then flinched in place as the walls around him began to slide into the ground along with the remnants of the device.

Having to quickly adjust to the drop in temperature around him because of the sun's disappearance behind the storm clouds, Riku finds himself standing atop a circular area with Eggman's insignia painted cleanly on the central area. The area was wide enough to signify a battle arena, which made the boy quickly assume that the doctor would send another machine at him for battle, but instead he quickly watched as the sky was filled with bipedal mechs and beetles that all shared a grey and white coloring to them and had a noticeable "G" branded on them.

The robots had came out of an invisible state and proceeded to swarm the Egg Continent, which activated the turrets lying near the Final Fortress in the distance, filling the already crowded sky with hundreds of laser made bullets that tear apart most of the robot troops deployed here today. Riku watches this event unfold for quite a few seconds before the turrets noticeably shut off and the robots fly towards the backside of the battleship.

"_G.U.N. Robots? What's going on here, when did they show up?" _Riku comments in his head as he glances back and watches the robots completely ignore his presence for the time being. Then the sound of engines roaring behind the boy causes him to turn his head just as a bolt of lightning comes down and signifies the falling of rain upon the area. The rain doesn't touch Riku's body thanks to a passive use of his powers, but the raindrops aren't his concern as he looks up at the robot responsible for grabbing his attention.

It was a particular tall robot with two meaty mechanical arms attached to two broad shoulders that projected an electromagnetic field around the entire thing. There was an anti-gravity device attached to the bottom of the robot that flipped around in place as two bulky legs floated underneath it, and vents sticking out from the back of the machine drained out an excess exhaust. The cyclops like yellow circle at the top of the robot's head suggested that it was the eye, but once the light-blue slit of light glowed below it Riku knew where the robot's vision lied. Though the robot's red coloring suggested that it was one of Eggman's mechs, the presence of the other G.U.N. robots clued Riku in onto who was in charge of controlling this machine.

But the fact that the machine was looking down at him instead of turning to face the Final Fortress worried Riku, whose suspicions were thus swiftly confirmed when a voice spoke through the robot's intercom. _"So, you're the one who has allied with Eggman!" _The surprising words spoken by this rough and angry sounding man took the teenage Overlord off-guard for a moment, causing him to blurt out without much thought "What did you say?!"

"_Don't think and say otherwise. Agent Rouge called in just a while ago and said that Eggman had allied himself with another human to take over the planet. And seeing as you are the only other human on-board the ship, that makes you his ally!" _The man speaking through the robot explained.

"With all due respect Com-" Riku was about to call the G.U.N. Commander out by rank, but realized quickly that revealing his knowledge wouldn't help his case in the slightest. Saying he was one of Sonic's allies wouldn't be useful either, since apparently Rouge had called the Commander and mentioned a human ally.

"_Wait a minute…Rouge? I haven't seen her at all on the battleship…If anything, either she's been mind-controlled by Eggman or Eggman used a voice modification device to trick the Commander…" _Riku deduced this after putting together all that he heard at the moment.

"Tch, I guess I can't expect you to listen to my side of the story, can I?" Riku asks as he draws his sword to combat the mechanical titan in front of him.

"_There's no need to explain anything! You are working with Eggman, therefore you are the enemy of G.U.N. and thus the world! He may be related to Maria…But I cannot allow Eggman's attempts at world conquest to go on any longer! If Sonic won't finish the job, then I will now with my fully completed ARK-Diablon, the ultimate mechanical life form!" _The Commander proudly proclaims the name of G.U.N.'s ultimate creation as he slams it's fists together.

"Sheesh, what a painful distraction I have to deal with…" Riku comments in a distraught tone as he considers all the facts at hand. Worst yet is that without the G.U.N. Commander noticing, a glass dome began to form around the battle arena, trapping the two in combat against their will.

The boy had to give Eggman credit where it was due, as begrudging as this admission was. _"Since the G.U.N. Commander has no strong life-signature, I can't tell if he's actually piloting the machine or not…Eggman's probably hoping I don't consider this and destroy the machine entirely, killing the Commander and leaving G.U.N. without their strongest weapon. So by luring the Commander here with a fake message, Eggman will either ensure that one of Earth's greatest lines of defense will be destroy, or he'll remove the unknown element in his grand scheme…Me." _

Riku tightly grasps his hand where the handle of his sword would be and kicks up into the air, taking flight and igniting his sword with fire as he says to the Commander "Alright fine then. I'm sorry we have to fight, but I promise to end this quickly…"

"_Y-You can fly?!" _The Commander proclaims in an understandable voice of shock, to which Riku replies with "That and much more. Like this for example!"

The teenage Overlord flies straight at the robot's chest, disregarding the presence of the electromagnetic barrier as he felt as though his strength would be enough to penetrate it. With sword swung at the barrier, Riku hit it with enough force to send Diablon back a good twenty feet through the air, but did absolutely nothing to scar the robot itself. Looking at the robot with a puzzled expression as the scar left across the barrier by his flames faded away, Riku commented in his head _"Well, guess brute forcing my way through isn't going to work…" _

Through Diablon, the Commander explains to the boy as he brushes his right finger against the part of the barrier that was attacked _"Ha! This barrier was designed to block attacks from Sonic and Shadow when they use the Chaos Emeralds. As impressive as your attack was, it won't ever put a dent in this barrier!" _

Riku thinks to himself _"Then I'll just have to pull it off!" _And with a quick thrust of his left hand the boy expected the barrier to be dismantled via his electric powers only for nothing of the sort to happen, much to his surprise. _"…And there's another flaw in my plans." _The boy thinks in a dull tone of annoyance as he pulls his hand away.

Diablon raises its right leg up and kicks Riku hard, sending him flying straight up into the dome, his back slamming hard against it as his arms and legs soon follow. The teenage Overlord then quickly peels his right arm away from the glass dome as Diablon fires a pure beam of energy at him from the Cyclops-like eye at the top. Blocking the attack with his sword, Riku squints his eyes as the bright light of the energy spreads around him.

The teenage Overlord pushes against the beam with all of his strength, straining his right arm in the process until he manages to force the beam back against itself and dispel it. Riku then leans forward and kicks off of the dome with his feet to launch at Diablon as the laser beam managed to shut-off the electromagnetic field around the titanic robot temporarily. Swinging his arms out beside him to the right, Riku prepares electricity around his sword and throws it straight at the chest of the robot.

The swipe of electricity hit's the robot before the shield turns back on, and pierces the metal shell to reach the wiring underneath. Diablon goes on the fritz for a few moments, breaking the G.U.N. Commander's control on the machine as Riku flips himself around to position his feet towards the shield, which he bounces off of and performs a couple flips as he descends towards the ground.

Though the shield was still up despite the short-circuiting attempt, Riku didn't dissuade himself from attempting to bypass it as he quickly dispelled his sword as he slammed his hands against the ground and spread out a sheet of ice along the ground past Diablon's notice. Once the ice ended up underneath the robot, Riku leaped back and drew his sword once more, watching as the robot regains control, and the Commander looks down at the boy and exclaims _"Hold still darn you!" _

Firing off another powerful laser from the eye, Diablon drops the electromagnetic barrier just long enough for Riku to crack a smile as he leaps back again and snaps his left fingers to utilize the sheet of ice, which grows upward in seconds to engulf the bottom half of the legs, keeping them trapped tightly enough that the Commander stops firing the laser off to pull his barrier back up. From far away on the controls, the Commander tries to get the legs to move, but the sharp chill in the ice makes it impossible for them to budge even an inch.

Riku comments in a joking manner "Should have attached a weapon or two to the legs." He then ignites his sword with raw fire and swings it at Diablon's legs like a boomerang. Watching as the sword glides through the air and rapidly spins around like a saw blade, the teenage Overlord takes a couple steps back as his weapon slices right through the part of the legs above the ice, cutting through them like butter due to the sharp contrast in temperature between them.

With half of the legs gone, the rest of them soon follow in being detached from the bottom of the gravitational field, leaving the upper half of the body to remain floating in the air of the dome. The barrier reforms around the smaller robot as the ice around the legs melts off and causes them to fall down atop their burning upper halves. But the Commander wasn't worried about the legs, and Diablon began to glow with red light around it's entire body as he said _"Hahaha! The legs were only a distraction! You've given me enough time to charge Diablon's ultimate attack!"_

Swinging his right arm out beside him, Diablon disables his electromagnetic barrier once more as he takes all the energy gathered within the core of his body and fires it out in a gigantic, spherical burst as he declares _"Antimatter cannon…Fire!" _

The energy exuding from the barrier was certainly not made of the material declared, for otherwise Riku would have been wiped off the face of the Earth along with everything the energy touched, including Diablon itself. But there was still much to be concerned about, as the teenage Overlord felt the power of the energy before it was launched and immediately took to stamping his feet against the ground and crouching down, using his Earth elemental power to pull some metal up to protect the front of his body.

The steel is pushed further up into the air as Riku slowly steps back to avoid being thrown onto his back by the combination of the steel and the antimatter cannon. When the boy felt that the attack was nearing an end, he wasted little time in slicing the steel in front of him with the hot tip of his blade. He then bent the top part into a sharpened point, suspending in the air with his left hand before pointing it at Diablon and firing it straight at the core without hesitation as the Commander proclaimed in shock _"What kind of madness is thi-"_

The sharp steel punctures through the core of the robot, ripping straight through the other side without a single droplet of blood coming out, confirming Riku's suspicion that the Commander was controlling the robot from afar. Electricity flows out from within the puncture mark as Diablon's anti-gravity device goes haywire, causing the machine to plummet towards the ground rather anti-climatically as the Commander's voice states in a melancholy tone _"N-No…I still couldn't do anything…Even without a prototype…"_

Diablon collapses against the ground chest first, the arms limping flat on both sides of the body as Riku dispels his sword and comments in a loud enough tone to the G.U.N. Commander "I'm sorry I had to fight you, but Eggman deceived you into wasting our time…"

"_W-What?" _The Commander says with what little energy was remaining inside of Diablon's voice box. Riku is about to explain in better detail what was going on, when all of a sudden Eggman interrupts the scene in a tasteless tone of voice _"How ridiculous. I shouldn't have expected the pitiful G.U.N. Commander to do anything…You're a disappointment to your race, a mockery to history itself."_

"_How dare you-" _The G.U.N. Commander's outrage in regards to Eggman's comment is interrupted by the Eggman insignia splitting apart in the center of this arena, which Riku directs his attention towards as something begins to rise out from the underground.

Eggman speaks during this time, saying to the teenage Overlord _"You've taken down one of my greatest robots and the ultimate creation of G.U.N….But your luck is at an end, boy. I am quite proud of this next achievement, even if I have tasked it's creation and piloting to my two diminutive, imbecilic robots… "_

The robot emerges all the way from the underground of the Egg Continent, revealing a gigantic machine with a serpentine body, four elongated arms with pulsating blue-electric claws, and a head that took on the form of an openly fanged mouth filled with ghastly eyeballs of two sizes. There was one gigantic one in the middle and three smaller ones on each opposing side of the bigger one, each one containing see-through glass in the iris. The remaining feature of note on this robots was a glowing mane on the back of the head that contained a bright, translucent violet glow and consisted entirely of hair textured rods.

"_Meet Mecha Dark Gaia! A recreation of one of the finest monsters I ever gazed my eyes upon in all my time on this Earth! And best of all, for the sake of accuracy in regards to it's power, I was able to salvage some Dark Gaia energy from my good old Eggmanland to use in powering this machine. I don't care how strong you've shown yourself to be so far, child…Even Sonic himself had trouble facing this creature!" _With Eggman's boasting out of the way as Mecha Dark Gaia casts it's gargantuan form across the battlefield, Riku once more draws his sword and scowls.

"_Cubot my good friend…You better not screw this one up for us, or the doctor will throw us into the scrap heap!" _The normally stoic Orbot says in a tone of urgency from the cockpit of the machine, to which his dapper friend replies by mentioning _"You kidding? I'm as serious as I've ever been!"_

Orbot replies in a melancholy tone of sarcasm _"And that's what I'm afraid of my good friend…That's what I'm afraid of."_

As Riku prepares to combat the machine, he hears a faint cracking glass above him. As water drips into the battlefield, he looks up and sees much to his surprise Sonic dropping down from the sky. The blue hedgehog sticks a perfect landing in front of the boy, his legs spread out as he plants his right hand against the ground and stares up at Mecha Dark Gaia with a nostalgic smile on his face. In his usually cocky tone of voice, Sonic says "Geez, you guys started a party and didn't invite me? Talk about a bad show of manners Eggman!"

As the blue hedgehog puts himself upright, Knuckles and Tails fall down beside him, and for a few seconds Riku stares at the three gathered heroes before Eggman interjects with utter shock in his voice _"S-Sonic?! You managed to deal with my mind-controlled minions?! Grrr, I guess I should have known better than to trust weaklings to handle you and your friends!"_

Sonic gestures with his right pointer finger up towards where Eggman's voice is coming from as he states "Yeah, I'm not happy about what you did to my friends Eggman! I'm going to mess you up for that later, but for now I'll be satisfied with scrapping another one of your mechs!" The blue hedgehog pounds his fists together ready for battle, and Tails and Knuckles simultaneously put up their dukes with equal amounts of enthusiasm.

Riku, turning towards Diablon as it appeared ready to shut down, said to the Commander "I guess there will be no more objections about whose side I'm on now?" To which after a moment of silence the G.U.N. said with his voice distorted by the fading voice box _"…None whatsoever…I wish the four of you the best of luck here…" _The G.U.N. Commander signs off, and as Diablon goes silent the teenage Overlord turns towards the mechanical roar of Mecha Dark Gaia and swings his sword out beside him ready for battle…

_Next Time: Full Throttle_


	16. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: Gaia Conflict**

Minutes before the battle with Mecha-Dark Gaia, we find Sonic and Tails rushing along the tops of the buildings Eggman has built atop the Egg Continent. The blue hedgehog comments as he flips atop a building ahead of him "Geez, how many of these things does Eggman need? I feel like we're not making any progress Tails!"

The fox, with tails twirling behind him as he focuses on fixing up his arm cannon after the earlier battle, comments in a barely focused tone of voice "Yeah, probably not."

Sonic looks over ahead now that he had reached the peak of all the buildings, noticing in particular the growing presence of storm clouds in the area as the laser fence falls out of existence around them. The blue blur stops at the edge of the building in surprise, and Tails lands on the ground behind him. "Huh?! How about that, someone actually got rid of that silly fence Eggman set up."

The yellow fox actually looks away from his arm cannon for a moment to see that what Sonic said is true. "Wonder who did it? Shadow? Knuckles? Riku?"

"Probably Shadow or Riku. Knuckles probably is stuck in some trap Eggman dumped him in after we split up." Sonic comments with a jovial chuckle at the end of his sentence. He then looks up into the air as a swarm of G.U.N. Beetles and Bipedals mechs heads towards the back of the ship, with a large red mech descending upon a crater-like arena at the end of all the other buildings.

"G.U.N.'s involved in this now?!" Sonic exclaims in surprise as he looks away from the smaller robots. Tails points out to his blue friend "Can't blame them. Eggman's flying over the continent with, well…His own continent, so of course they'd get involved."

The blue hedgehog grumbles a bit as he reminisces about the last time he had to deal with G.U.N., and then Tails goes and points out "Not to mention Shadow IS one of their agents now, so they are just probably trying to recover him from the area."

Sonic glances at Tails and notes "Huh? Oh yeah, I actually forgot all about that." He then looks back at the large red robot and notices a dome forming over it, suggesting that Eggman had lured the rider of the robot into a trap.

Gesturing at the dome with his right hand, the blue hedgehog smiles and says as the rain starts to fall around him "Come on Tails! We're missing out on some action!" The blue blur then zips along as the yellow fox flinches in surprise and turns away from his arm cannon long enough to declare "Hey! Don't think you can take all of the action for yourself!"

Tails flies back up into the air and tries to catch up with Sonic, but finds that he wouldn't need to go too far as the blue blur skids in place as a streak of red punctures through the floor and rises high into the air. The two heroes skid to a stop and watch as Knuckles descends from the air and lands down with his right fist punching into the steel floor. The red echidna then looks up with a confident smile on his face that fades away into surprise as he sees his two allies standing in front of him.

Sonic cocks a smile and slants his right arm beside his body as he finds himself commenting to Knuckles "Hey Knuckles, long time no see!"

The red echidna stands back up and says in a somewhat angered manner to his friend "We weren't separated that long Sonic!" To which the blue hedgehog chuckles and replies with "I know, I just felt compelled to say that. So, where have you been?"

Knuckles folds his arms against his chest and says "I broke free from one of Eggman's traps and fought the mind-controlled Chaotix. Didn't even break a sweat."

Tails comments in a joking tone "Well to be fair Knuckles, the rain would have washed any sweat off by now." To which the red echidna looks at him with a twitch in his right eyelid and replies "Give me a break Tails, I am definitely capable of doing things on my own without struggling!"

Sonic is about to make a wise-ass remark regarding what Knuckles just said, only for the red echidna to take notice and snap at him with a simple "Don't you even think about it Sonic!"

The blue blur still gets the last word into the conversation by folding his arms against his chest and saying "I already did that Knuckles. Sorry, too slow." Which causes Knuckles to growl at his friend for a brief moment.

The three heroes' conversation is broken by a flash of blue-light coming from the dome in the distance. Sonic notices a chunk of metal being tossed through the red robot and says "Knuckles, we can share some witty banter later. Right now we're missing a party over there!"

With that the blue blur zips past the red echidna as he turns around to notice the dome for the first time. Once Tails flies past him, Knuckles leaps into the air and glides after his two friends as they head towards the dome.

Standing at the edge of the dome, Sonic looks inside and sees Riku finishing his battle with the red mech when the center of the floor opens up and a mechanical copy of Perfect Dark Gaia rises up. The blue hedgehog at first thought the creature was real until he saw the glass eyes, at which point he commented in an overly excited tone of voice "Well well, what has Eggman built here?"

Knuckles lands behind Sonic, and the blue hedgehog turns to face him and flips a thumb up towards the top of the dome while asking swiftly "Knuckles, launch me up to the top of the dome. We need to bust into this dome and join in on the fun!"

The red echidna glances over Sonic's body and sees the human boy, commenting to Sonic afterwards "That's that Riku guy, right?"

The blue hedgehog nods his head, and as he cocks a merry smile he comments "Yeah. And right now he's hogging all of the entertainment to himself!"

Sonic turns around and waits for Knuckles to hold his hands out to catch him by the feet as he leaps back. With all of his strength, the red echidna launches the blue hedgehog up to the top of the dome, leaving Tails and Knuckles to fly and climb up the side of it respectively. Spinning himself around twice to make the flight a little more exciting, Sonic looks down at the dome and quickly comes up with a entrance line as he pushes himself down foot first to crack through the glass with ease, smiling all the while.

We now return to the present, where Sonic looks up at the titanic Mecha-Dark Gaia and says to his gathered allies "Well, since Chip isn't here with his fancy little colossus, I guess we're going to have use something else to attack this robot!"

Snapping his fingers beside himself after making this comment, the blue blur is forced to leap back alongside his friends as Orbot and Cubot force the Mecha-Dark Gaia to swing one of his gigantic claws down at them. Tails then notes "Sonic, are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?"

The blue hedgehog then glances back at the yellow fox as his body glows brightly and seven different colored Emeralds emerge from around his body in a ring. Knuckles is quick to point out in a somewhat angered tone towards his friend "You had the Chaos Emeralds on you this entire time?!"

Sonic shrugs and says "Yeah, why not? I just happened to run across them recently." To which the red echidna responds by mentioning "Then WHY DIDN'T YOU USE THEM SOONER?! WE COULD HAVE BEEN DONE WITH EGGMAN ALREADY!"

The blue hedgehog smirks and says in a nonchalant tone of voice "Where's the fun in that Knuckles?"

Before Knuckles can say anything to Sonic, the trio has to leap away from another claw swipe as Orbot exclaims from the controls of the Mecha-Dark Gaia "Sorry Sonic, but for the sake of our lives we can't allow you to use those against us."

After performing that swipe with one claw, Orbot throws another one up and points it down at the heroes, taking the Dark Gaia energy from within the core of the robot and firing out a foggy black and dark purple sphere towards the heroes. Instead of the trio leaping back though, Riku leaps at the sphere and tries to use his flaming sword to cut it down, only for his weapon to fail in the effort much to his surprise as the sphere collides with his body and bursts, sending him crashing against the ground behind the heroes with traces of Dark Gaia energy steaming out of him.

The attack hurt more than Riku expected as he slowly rises off the ground, his bones cracking in the process due to the impact with the steel floor. He scowls at the damage done to his body as he comments in his mind _"Ok, I didn't just imagine that…My sword didn't even affect the attack…"_

Sonic glances at Riku and says in a partially concerned tone "Hey, you ok there Riku?" The teenage Overlord gets onto his feet and replies with "Yeah…Just a little battered. I'm surprised that Dark Gaia energy hurts so much…"

Tails says to Sonic afterwards "Sonic, we can't exactly all go Super with the regular Chaos Emeralds, remember?" The blue blur remembers this fact quite well though as he looks at his dear friend and says "Yeah, you two need the Super Emeralds. But we could always do what we did when we fought Metal Sonic way back when."

The yellow fox, despite having some faith in the idea, is countered by the current situation as he points out to his friend "But Sonic, I don't think we'll be able to do it while we're under attack like this!"

As Tails says this, two of Mecha-Dark Gaia's claws come down upon the heroes. Without them charged by the foreign energy, Riku feels he can safely fly at the claws and block them by sweeping his left hand across the air and summoning forth a very thick wall of ice by drawing on all the moisture that had fallen into the dome. The ice blocks one of the claws, but the other one swings in at such an angle that it starts to head for Sonic, Tails and Knuckles.

Riku glances back while focusing on the ice wall in front of him to make sure that Team Sonic dodges the attack, and when the successful move leads to the claw scratching apart the ground the teenage Overlord lets out a relieved sigh and dispels his ice wall as both claws fly back into position. Swinging his sword out beside him while staring up at the titanic mech, Riku comments to the three heroes behind him "Just let me run a distraction, you three do whatever you need to fight this guy."

Leaving Team Sonic alone, the teenage Overlord flies higher into the air to put himself in front of Mecha-Dark Gaias eyes, at which point Orbot says to the boy "My apologies good sir, but you are not our opponent. If you would just stand aside and let us deal with Sonic and his pals…"

Riku responds to the robot's politeness by swinging his sword of fire at the central eye of the mechanoid, hitting it with a wave of pure fire that pushes the entire head back a little bit. The glass eye didn't have a single mark on it after the attack ended, causing the teenage Overlord to retract the comment he was about to say as Orbot goes on to mention "Sigh…Please don't embarrass yourself with this. This isn't your fight."

Cubot adds his own remark to the matter "Yeah, git outta here!" as he swings the mechanoid's body to the left and uses both claws in conjunction to backhand Riku's body with Dark Gaia energy, which leaves behind a shockwave of residue in the air as the teenage Overlord is launched against the side of the dome, his body crashing through the glass and sending him outside the battlefield into the rainy atmosphere.

But the teenage Overlord manages to flip himself around after impacting the metal floor outside, and after sliding a quite a few feet because of the slippery surface he kicks forward and launches himself back at the battlefield, moving through the hole created by his impact and heading straight for Mecha-Dark Gaia as it's four claws move towards the front of his body. Dark Gaia energy is charged from the tips to create a powerful projectile in the center of his serpentine body.

Riku slams right into the upper right arm of the mechanical beast with his body surrounded by electricity to protect himself. The collision disrupts the transfer of energy in that arm by budging it just enough out of the way. The teenage Overlord then tries to cut through the arm with one swift slash, only for the Dark Gaia energy to make the arm hard enough for not even the searing flames to burn through.

The distraction was made, however, and Orbot and Cubot stop focusing on trying to blast Sonic with the energy stored within the robot to turn and face the teenage Overlord. "You just won't give up, will you?" Orbot comments in a somewhat irritated tone as his dim-witted companion says "If this little git wants to act like a fly, we'll treat him like a fly!"

With all four claws raised out around the Mecha-Dark Gaia, Cubot continues on by mentioning "Time to go squish you little gnat!"

Riku curls himself up slightly and prepares to summon a barrier of flames to protect himself, only for him to detect a sudden spike in power behind him that makes his eyebrows twitch upward in shock. The purity of this power could not be denied nor ignored, as before the claws were within inches of clamping the teenage Overlord between them Orbot detected the readings coming from this power source and stopped the attack, commenting in a tone of disappointment towards himself "…We just fell for a distraction my good friend."

Riku takes this chance to back away from the claws and glance off to the right, where he feels a reservoir of power radiating off of Sonic, who now floats in the center of the air with a golden aura surrounding his body. His fur has also turned to gold, but save for that there was nothing different about his appearance save for the somewhat serious demeanor on his face. Beside him were Tails and Knuckles, who were kept in bubbles of golden energy that allowed them to fight alongside Sonic for the time being.

"You ready to rumble?!" Sonic brandishes a pointer finger at the Mecha-Dark Gaia as he exclaims that in an overly confident tone of voice.

Orbot turns the Mecha-Dark Gaia towards the three super-powered heroes and says in an annoyed tone of voice "…I really wish I could just retire and escape from all of this nonsense. Sigh…Would it too much to ask for you to go easy on us, Sonic?"

The blue hedgehog smirks at the two robots' remark and points out "So long as you try your hardest, I'll see what I can do." Which makes Orbot rear the claws of the Mecha-Dark Gaia into the air and take the battle a little more seriously as he exclaims "Very well then Sonic…Engarde!"

Orbot commands one of the Mecha-Dark Gaia claws to thrust at Super Sonic with all it's might, but he quickly zips between the fingers before the claws connect with his body. Tails and Knuckles split up to cover more ground, while Riku stays away from the rest of the heroes for a moment and concentrates on his sword, thinking calmly about the situation as he activates the Light element to change into his angelic garbed self, which allows him to truly grip around the handle of his newly formed diamond-gilded katana.

"_Good choice Riku. This Dark Gaia energy is close enough to darkness itself that you should be able to permanently dispel it with this form." _The black dragon Takashi notes through the mind of the teenage Overlord. Riku nods his head in agreement as he hardens his sword even more with pure light and joins Team Sonic in battle against the titanic mech.

Streaks of light both gold and white fly across the sky around the Mecha-Dark Gaia, forcing Orbot and Cubot to keep track of them all with the radar given to them by their creator. "You aim for the fox and the echidna, I will deal with Sonic and his human ally." Orbot states as he swings the claws on his side towards the blue hedgehog and the boy, missing just barely as he scratches the very air with Dark Gaia energy.

In the mean time, Cubot uses his claws to rapid-fire spheres of the energy at Tails and Knuckles, missing entirely with each shot due to the lack of a steady aim combined with the speed of the two heroes. "Blast it! Stand still you little varmints!"

Looping underneath one of the claws, Knuckles punches the arm at the joint with all of his might, denting it hard enough that the energy flow is disrupted for a brief period of time. A vibration shakes through to the center of the robot, causing Orbot to comment to his friend "Watch where you are throwing those claws! You're allowing them to break my concentration!"

While the two robots bickered a bit, Cubot used the working claw on his side to face Knuckles and grab him tightly in his grasp, coating the claw with Dark Gaia energy in the process. Tails notices this and quickly flies over to the claw, ramming it shoulder first in a very specific part near the wrist to break Knuckles out of Mecha-Dark Gaia's clutch. Once he was freed, the echidna takes his right fist and thrusts it straight at the palm.

Instead of denting the metal claw, however, Knuckles is blasted straight on by a burst of Dark Gaia energy in retaliation for him breaking free. The echidna is launched back through the air, his body spiraling around a few times before he regains control a good distance away from the titanic mech. Knuckles then pounds his fists together and charges back at the mech for another round, while Riku glances off at the echidna and fox after parrying a claw swipe from the right side of the mech.

The teenage Overlord notices something he didn't happen to before, where the scattered bits of Dark Gaia energy are slowly pulled back into tiny vents on the arms of the mech. Remembering what Takashi suggested regarding the Dark Gaia energy, Riku drew his sword in front of his body and flew back far enough to force one of the claws to launch a sphere his way. Upon the mech doing so, the teenage Overlord cuts the sphere down with his light energy, and with the purity of light infused within the weakened Dark Gaia energy it vanishes into nothing in a few seconds.

"Then that's the way to handle this…" Riku quietly notes as he clasps his arms around his katana's handle and waits patiently for the mech to fire another Dark Gaia related attack. Calmly positioning himself in order to strengthen his light energy output for defense, the teenage Overlord floats in place and uses a defensive shield as a claw swings at him with Dark Gaia energy around the tips.

With the shield consisting of light, the energy burns into nothing upon impact, but Sonic doesn't notice this and instead rises up to uppercut the claw from the wrist to knock it away. He then zips away from a projectile launched from the other claw before Riku can thank him and heads for the eyes of the creature. As a show of good sport, the golden hedgehog only punctures straight through the far right glass eye, rupturing through the metal skin on the back and pushing the head in that direction at the same time.

Orbot exclaims in a panic as the sirens go off from the damage dealt to the body so far "This idea would have worked so much better if we were just fighting Sonic! Four against this gigantic mech is too much to handle!"

In a panic the robot flips his arms around to try to use the mech's many features, which results in a rapid-fire of Dark Gaia energy orbs from his claws along with random swipes in-between each shot. Riku notices this bizarre assault and speeds back and forth through the air, taking down the energy with his own light while Orbot fails to notice that the energy gauge was depleting in front of him.

In fact, it was Cubot who pointed out the oddity between his efforts, and as he turned to his normally composed companion and said "Ummm pardner…We're kind of losing power here…"

Orbot sighs and says in an unsurprised tone of voice "Fantastic…Just what I needed to hear Cubot. Now Sonic and his friends are going to destroy our mech and the doctor will dismantle us and probably use our parts for Egg Pawn materials!"

Just as he says this, Sonic turns back around and rams through one of the eyes closest to the control panels, creating an explosion that blows Cubot down onto the side of his body and pulls him away from the controls. The claws on his side are disabled, and the robot raises his left pointer finger up and comments "I reckon our defenses have been lowered as well because of this."

Orbot responds with a sarcastic tone "Oh JOY" while slapping the front of his orb shaped head. On the outside of the mech, Sonic smirks and looks at Riku, saying to him as he wags his left pointer finger in front of him "I'll go for the head, you go for the body, ok?"

The teenage Overlord nods in agreement, and after Super Sonic looks at the Mecha-Dark Gaia and pumps his fists beside his body before covering himself in a shiny golden veil and charging straight at the gigantic eye in the center of the mech. Riku meanwhile goes right for the center of the serpentine stomach, cutting straight through it with the glowing swathe of his blade at the same time as Sonic punctures right through the central eye.

The combination of the two attacks causes the head of the body to start collapsing forward, the claws going limp in mid-air as Orbot and Cubot begin to lose their balance near the Mecha-Dark Gaia's controls. Orbot looks at the looming collapse up ahead and turns to his friend, saying to him with an accepting sigh "Well my good friend, we've had quite a good service time…It was an honor to be with you."

As explosions go off around the two robots, Cubot can't help but point out to his brother in mechanical arms "But I was only activated five months ago!"

Orbot says to his dim-witted friend "…I am truly, truly going to miss your dim-witted nature, Cubot." as both of their bodies are flung out of the front of the glass eye. However, before their demise can be delivered, out of the blue Sonic swoops in and catches both robots in his hands, moving out of the way of the crashing wreckage of the Mecha-Dark Gaia and dropping the two robots off on the ground a safe distance away.

Orbot is naturally surprised by this gesture from the blue hedgehog, who reverts back to normal along with Tails and Knuckles now that the Mecha-Dark Gaia has exploded apart behind him. With the crackles of the burning wreckage acting as a backdrop, the rounded robot asks "W-What? This doesn't make any sense…Why did you save us?"

Sonic brushes the bottom of his nose with his right pointer finger as Tails looks at the blue hedgehog as though he had lost his mind. Sonic's response to the question was "Eh, it wouldn't be Eggman if he didn't have two bumbling robots playing off of him. Besides, you're nicer than most of the other robots Eggman has tried to kill me with, so I'll let you off with a warning this time."

Orbot and Cubot are left dumbfounded by Sonic's decision even after an explanation, and the blue hedgehog turns to face Tails as he says "You sure that's a good idea Sonic?"

Sonic shrugs as he begins to walk off, saying in a nonchalant tone of voice "Eh, what harm can they cause? Come on Tails, now that this is over with, nothing's standing between us and good ol' Egghead!"

The blue blur dashes off towards the off side of the dome, and Tails and Knuckles follow soon afterwards. The echidna points out as they run "Doesn't it seem odd that it was easy to take that giant mech down?"

Tails responds to Knuckles by mentioning "Going by how this was all setup, I don't think Eggman was expecting this many people to fight him. Nor did he probably expect Sonic to have the Chaos Emeralds."

Team Sonic rushes towards the end of the dome, where Riku drops down and uses his sword to quickly cut apart the glass so all four of them can escape. Afterwards he reverts back to his normal state and lands in front of the trio, he gives a quick thumbs up towards Sonic specifically and comments "Hey, good work on taking down the head."

Sonic meets the boy's gesture with a similar one of his own, giving him a quick smile as he comments "Same goes to you Riku. Anyways, while we're heading to give Eggman a run for his money, you should tell us what you've been up to!"

The teenage Overlord nods his head in agreement and turns towards the opening in the dome, and all four heroes run off ready to go infiltrate the Final Fortress and take the fight directly to Eggman…

_Next Time: The Ally Revealed_


	17. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: The Brawl of Four Worlds Part 1**

Deep inside the Final Fortress, Shadow breaks out of Chaos Control with Metal Sonic still in tow over his right shoulder. He had found himself inside of a corridor without any security cameras or robot guards, and with the sanctuary of this area at his fingertips the black hedgehog lowers the robotic doppelganger against the wall in front of him and looks straight at him, stating in a quiet tone of voice "Alright, let's see what you're hiding Metal Sonic…"

Shadow reaches into the back of Metal Sonic's head, opening up a metal plate around there while leaning the head forward to get a good look at what the circuitry looked like once he tossed the plate aside. There was a specific button on the back that grabbed Shadow's attention, and he pressed it and pushed Metal Sonic back against the wall so the eyes could project video footage onto the ground in front of him.

The black hedgehog stands up and jumps beside the video projections as it activates. There is a bit of static at first, but most of it vanishes as Metal Sonic is reactivated by Eggman. The doctor stands before the metal doppelganger with arms spread out after he dropped a door that the robot was kept behind inside one of Eggman's bases. _"Wake-up Metal Sonic! It's time for you to be put to good use once more!" _

Metal Sonic lifts his head up obediently and a red glow fills the lower quality footage, but the voice that speaks afterwards belongs neither to Metal Sonic nor Eggman…Or specifically, the Eggman of the present. _"So eventually I'm going to create a robot clone of Sonic? Huh, that's definitely not one of our worst sounding ideas…" _The second voice belonged to the Eggman from the past, who was shorter and more cartoon-ish looking than the Eggman everyone knows today.

Metal Sonic turned to face the younger Eggman due to recognizing the voice, even if it did sound somewhat younger. The present day Eggman gestured at his younger self and commented _"You won't be thinking that for long, trust me…If you can remember it, put a muzzle on his self-thinking capabilities, it will save you one extra failure."_

"_I'll keep that in mind…But if this robot is so much of a failure, why are you bothering to use him?" _The younger Eggman asks. The present Eggman flicks one of his fingers against his mustache and responds with an honest _"I need all the help I can get to set up my final plan to deal with Sonic once and for all. I will be pooling nearly ALL of my resources to stop that blasted hedgehog and secure my rule of the world for good!"_

Eggman pumps his fist in front of his body and sounds triumphant, but his younger self has little faith in the idea and mentions to him _"Do you really even HAVE that much left to use? I don't understand how we could have made all of these robots and battleships without eventually running out of resources."_

The present Eggman responds with _"You'll figure that out in due time my young, handsome friend. In the mean time though, you should have more faith in my plans. Before I went through time to erase my past mistakes, I had begun work on a grand battleship that will surpass all others in size. Not only that, but I still have plenty of Dark Gaia energy, Hyper-go-on Energy, Metal Sonic, Orbot and Cubot, the designs for all of my past creations, and my secret weapon."_

"_I don't even know what any of that means." _Past Eggman bluntly points out, to which the present one goes on to mention _"You will someday." _

"_Don't you mean I will soon?" _Past Eggman asks. Present Eggman taps his glasses up an inch and points out bluntly _"That's not possible. I am going to send you back to the past as soon as I can so we don't risk a time destroying paradox if you were to somehow perish."_

"_And we already didn't risk that enough when you pulled me from the past to help you with that Time Eater mech?!" _Past Eggman angrily states.

Present Eggman glares at his past self and says to him _"I should have expected this level of stubbornness from myself. Listen Eggman, I don't need your expertise in the present anymore since now I have another partner to help me stop that blue hedgehog." _

"_Please, my handsome future self…But you are naïve if you think that madman will go through with your plans all the way. From the sound of things you two have not only been on opposite sides before, but when you have teamed up you have failed to accomplish your goals." _Past Eggman explains.

"_Those failures are part of the past, they have no impact on how we will handle things now. Things will be different, especially now that he brought up an interesting idea…" _Present Eggman takes a moment to walk in front of his past self in a prideful stride as he goes on to explain _"Recall how our last effort worked out. We had both Sonics defeated at our feet, but they still managed to regain strength and defeat us…And what triggered this event? Why, it was none other than all of their friends cheering them on."_

"…_And your point is what exactly?" _Past Eggman asks in a frustratingly confused tone of voice. The present one responds with a slick smile on his face filled with devious intent as he states _"I shall let you in on a little secret…Remember the Hyper-go-on energy I mentioned earlier? It's a type of energy produced only by the Wisps, and by harnessing it is possible to create constructs depending on which type of Wisp you extract the energy from. But by inverting the energy, you create a power capable of infecting the mind and subjugating it under one's control."_

Past Eggman tilts his head and says _"I still don't get it." _Present Eggman turns to look at his younger self and says straight to his face _"By utilizing the Nega Hyper-go-on energy that I managed to keep from my second-to-last failed plan, I will capture and mind-control all of Sonic's friends, turning them against him and making sure that in his hesitation to fight back, he'll fall before them!"_

Past Eggman's eyes light up at this ingenious idea, and in a confidently spoken tone he states _"Ohohoho! That will surely prove to be the downfall of that irritating blue pest!"_

"_Unfortunately, I won't be able to use the energy on his best friend Tails. The fox will be immune since I had already used it on him once before. But there are plenty of others to pick from, so I am not concerned." _Present Eggman says as an eerie smile crosses his face.

"_And what if this plan fails?" _Past Eggman points out the one obvious flaw in this whole idea, but his present self goes on to state _"Then they will at least prove to be a great distraction. My end-game is not just the elimination of Sonic, after all. To rule the world, I need to secure absolute dominance over all major powers. To that end, I will create a machine so powerful in design that nothing in this world will be able to stand up to it."_

"_E-Even more powerful than the Time Eater?!" _Past Eggman was both impressed and frightened by the prospect his future self ran by him, and as Present Eggman swung his arms out beside himself he stated _"Yes…I will combine Dark Gaia Energy, Nega Hyper-go-on Energy and the Negative qualities of the Chaos Emeralds together as fuel for my ultimate weapon. The world will be mine once and for all! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"_

Shadow comments as the footage reaches this point "So that is Eggman's endgame…" Even though he now knew the doctor's goals, there was something about what was said in the video that made him want to search through it further. Reaching into the back of Metal Sonic's head, Shadow presses another button to jump ahead to a later point in time, where the past Eggman can be seen walking through a temporary time rift that would send him back to his proper time period.

After the past Eggman vanishes, the present day Eggman turns away from the collapsing rift and says to his other visitor _"Now that that matter's out of the way, we should get back to work on our projects. Unfortunately, since we were forced to captured Shadow and Rouge prematurely, we will need to push up the launch of our assault before G.U.N. comes after us, which in turn will grab Sonic's attention. It is quite bothersome I assure you, but if our mind-controlled minions do as commanded they should be able to distract them long enough for us to finish our main goals." _

Eggman nudges his glasses up an inch and says to his visitor _"And yes, that includes Orbot, Cubot and Metal Sonic too…I am glad that we could put aside our past indifferences to work for this common cause…"_

The person in question starts to walk into Metal Sonic's view, at which point Shadow's eyes widen briefly and he states calmly "…It all makes sense now." He doesn't let Eggman state the person's name before he shuts off the video footage and quickly stands back upright. Once there he turns around and says "I need to get to the top of this fortress. There's no time to waste now…" before he sprints off down the hallway.

Back at the front of the Final Fortress, Team Sonic and Riku have managed to take a dash pad that launches them into the expansive battleship, which was reconstructed perfectly down to the last nut and bolt. Landing atop a steel rectangular platform, the four heroes make a quick sprint towards a glowing yellow grind rail as the platform collapses upon them making contact with it.

"Heh, leave it to Eggman to not fix the flaws in his machines the second time around." Sonic comments as his shoes create sparks along the rail as he grinds down it. Riku opts to fly beside the three heroes instead of taking the rail, though the sting of sparks flowing off of Sonic's shoes makes him rise up a bit after a few seconds as they touch his eyes and make him flinch.

At the end of the grind rail a spring launches Sonic, Tails and Knuckles far through the air, taking them to a walled in corridor filled with more of the collapsing platforms. Riku comments at this point "I don't even get why Eggman rebuilt this thing. Seems like a waste to me."

As Team Sonic scales the platforms and looks for the spring that will take them out of this semi-dangerous area, Tails jokingly comments "Like this is any different from Eggman's usual tactics. Seriously, if Sonic doesn't spend more than thirty seconds on something, then it was a waste of time for Eggman to focus on."

"Can't you say that about everything he's made?" Sonic quips as the three heroes land on the spring and bounce up towards some more stable platforms.

Tails smiles and says to the blue hedgehog "I don't know, remember that time on Angel Island when you spent more than a minute dealing with that barrel?"

Sonic skids to a stop for just a moment, causing both Tails and Knuckles to ram into his backside and collapse backwards. The blue hedgehog turns around and looks at his yellow fox, saying to him in a chiding tone of voice "Tails! I told you to never bring that up again!"

The yellow fox gets back on his feet alongside Knuckles and comments "Heheh, come on Sonic, it's a little funny when you think about it."

The blue hedgehog scratches the side of his head and says in a somewhat distressed tone of voice "Maybe for you Tails. I sure didn't enjoy it very much."

Knuckles interjects to the conversation by pointing out "I didn't enjoy it either. I mean Eggman built an amusement park right into Angel Island and blocked off the best parts with that annoying unbreakable barrel."

Tails turns to the red echidna and says "But Knuckles, how could you ever have time for an amusement park when you need to protect the Master Emerald?"

Knuckles is about to respond to that when Riku interrupts Team Sonic and gestures towards the tower in the distance simultaneously "Guys, I know you love your banter, but don't forget that we have an egg to crack."

Sonic turns around and points a finger at Riku, saying to him with his grin renewed "I haven't forgotten anything. Come on Tails and Knuckles, lets get our momentum back up!" With a swing of his hand as he glances back at his two friends followed by a nod of the head from them both and a comment reflective of their personalities, Team Sonic and Riku continue to sprint through the Final Fortress to chase down Eggman at the end of it all.

Thanks to knowing how this fortress operates, Sonic and pals are able to breeze through it with easy. As they reach the final set of grind rails filled with laser cannons firing upon them, Tails takes a moment to call out the colors of the lasers for old time's sake "Red Laser! Green Laser! Yellow Laser! Green Laser! Green Laser! Red Laser!"

"You have to wonder why he only used three laser colors…" Knuckles comments in a duller tone than Tails' enthusiasm. The yellow fox responds with as he leaps over a laser and lands on another rail "Well come on Knuckles, a brown laser wouldn't look cool at all now would it?"

After a few more seconds of high-speed grinding, Team Sonic is launched onto a large platform with nothing on it save for one familiar face. Once on the ground Sonic wastes little time in commenting with a look of surprise and confusion on his face "Shadow? How did you manage to get here before us?"

The black hedgehog turns to his blue counterpart and cuts past the question, saying to him in a calm yet serious tone of voice "I found out what Eggman's goals are…And just who his second partner is."

Tails and Knuckles flinch in surprise while Sonic cracks a smile and Riku remains stationary beside the blue hedgehog. Sonic asks "Well Shadow, it's not nice to keep someone waiting. Whatcha got for us?"

Shadow looks at his four allies and starts to say "Eggman is working with-" but suddenly the platform they are all standing on jolts up slightly, breaking him off in the middle of his conversation as the platform itself rapidly rises into the air, spinning around all the time to try and disorient the heroes.

Sonic and Shadow kneel down and focus all of their strength into keeping themselves steady while Knuckles digs his knuckles into the ground and Tails uses his arm cannon to magnetize himself to the ground. Riku looks up calmly as the area distorts around him, noticing a gargantuan arena in the sky coming rapidly into view with the tower adorned with Eggman's face visible on the end of it as the platform locks into place in the hole at the southern end of the arena.

When the platform locks into place, everyone stands back upright and directs their attention towards the tower. It was certainly as large and egoistically designed as Sonic remembered it being, but it had a little bit of a menacing feel to it thanks to the stormy atmosphere that still presides over the Egg Continent. The arena is covered in rugged red and white metal tiles with a ring of electricity residing around it, and as the five heroes finish scanning the arena they look up to see a holographic screen appear in front of the tower. Unsurprisingly, Eggman was on the screen with his arms outstretched on both sides of his body as he proclaimed to the heroes "Welcome! I finally have you all right where I want you!"

Sonic brandishes his pointer finger at Eggman and says to him "Ha, you wish Eggman! We have you right where WE want you! You shouldn't be so overconfident since we trashed all of your plans!"

Tails glances off to the left for a moment upon hearing a strange noise amidst the cracks of thunder, and upon raising his eyebrows suspicious he points out to his friend "Ummm Sonic…I think you should take a look at this…"

The blue hedgehog glances to the left nonchalantly at Tails' suggestion, saying as he does so "What's got you in a funk Taiiiiiiiiiils?!" Sonic's last word slurs out as he becomes quickly surprised by what he sees. Riding in his fashionably sleek Egg Mobile away from the Egg Continent is…Eggman?

As Team Sonic expresses disbelief at what they were seeing, the Eggman on the screen starts giggling like a madman, his voice taking on a slightly more high-pitched tone as he does so. Shadow confronts the Eggman on the screen with one brandished finger and a louder voice than usual "This game ends now. I know who you really are…Eggman Nega!"

Team Sonic turns back around to face the screen, with Sonic raising his arms up and nearly fall on his back in surprise while Tails and Knuckles gasp at this bit of news and state "Eggman Nega?!" At the same time.

The Eggman on the monitor grasps his right glove around his face and tears off the disguise he wore in an instant. Underneath the disguise was someone who looked exactly like Eggman in physique, only he had a silver bushy mustache, a more futuristic set of goggles atop his head, a black and yellow suit atop a red body covering, and black-yellow striped shoes. Still breaking into laughter out of enjoyment for everything that has happened up until this point, Eggman Nega stops only once Shadow says to him "What's so funny?"

Eggman Nega pulls his hand away from his face and responds to the black hedgehog in a somewhat unhinged manner "What do you think you annoying little black hedgehog?! I'm laughing at how easily we managed to deceive you into thinking there was only ONE Eggman running this operation!"

Shadow grumbles a bit at what Eggman Nega was saying, since in truth he should have realized what was going on long before he looked at Metal Sonic's video feed. Sonic points at the screen and proclaims "Geez, you're becoming just as persistent as your counterpart Nega! What, was Blaze giving you too much of a hard time in her dimension?!"

For once, Knuckles actually points out Sonic's wrong use of words here and says to him "Ummm Sonic…Eggman Nega's from the future. He's Eggman's descendant."

The blue hedgehog gets a disgusted look on his face for a moment as his bravado fades away and he turns to face Knuckles, saying to him blankly "I really didn't have to hear that Knuckles…Thanks a lot buddy."

Nega corrects both heroes quickly, saying to them in a deviously spoken manner "Actually, you are both right. Not only am I Eggman's descendant, but I am also the Sol Dimension's greatest villain! You see, since Eggman failed so often at conquering this world, I came back to the past and traveled to the Sol Dimension to try and conquer it before it became impossible to do so in my future! After all, if I couldn't be taken seriously in my own dimension, why not show another one that the Eggman lineage meant business?!"

Sonic looks back at Eggman Nega and says to him in a jovial tone "Yeah well you screwed that plan up big time, didn't ya? Guess you really are Eggman's descendant, hahaha…"

Sonic's laughter causes Eggman Nega to fume in rage, and he angrily declares "You blue infidel, if it wasn't for you and your descendants the Eggman lineage would never have been turned into a complete and utter joke by my time!"

The blue hedgehog responds with a kindly gesture and a simply spoken "Nah, you guys probably would have became a joke even without my help. I mean come on, who would take your mechanical bugs seriously?"

Nega slams his fists down on the keyboard in front of him, putting static onto the screen for a brief moment as his face turns a light shade of red and he declares "Enough out of you, you horrid little hedgehog! This shall be the moment of triumph for the Eggman lineage, where we avert my future and create a permanent Eggman Empire!"

Shadow says towards Eggman Nega with arms folded calmly against his chest "How did you even get back here? Last I checked you were trapped in Ifrit's Dimension."

Eggman Nega calms down and grins menacingly, saying in response to the black hedgehog's question "Hehehe…I suppose there is no harm in revealing that. After all, last you knew of me and my grandfather were not exactly on the best of terms, so how did we end up teaming up?"

"_It all starts in Ifrit's Dimension, like Shadow so kindly brought to your attention…I was trapped under heavy amount of rubble thanks to that irritating Silver and his chameleon companion…With the portal back to Earth sealed off, I was left alone to break my way out, an endeavor that took quite a while until a random quake pushed most of the rubble off and freed me. From there I went on to gather all the spare technology I could from that broken, charred dimension in order to build a way out of there._

_It took probably many months, but I finally managed to create a drill that would pierce through the dimensional wall trapping me inside. Imagine my surprise though when I found myself in a white void between dimensions, and who would I find but Eggman and his younger self meandering around. I had broken into an empty void of time that existed between dimensions, and after finding out what the two Eggmen were doing I offered them freedom back to Earth…On one condition._

_Eggman and I would team-up again to try and take over the world by stamping you out for good. I was the one who suggested to him that he use the Nega Hyper-go-on energy to mind-control your friends, but he decided to take the idea even further after a bit of inspiration from his last failed plan. He told me he had a secret weapon in mind that would be powerful enough to stop Sonic or anyone else that would dare try to oppose him, but to fuel this weapon he'd need three types of energy._

_Dark Gaia energy, Nega Hyper-go-on energy, and the negative qualities of the Chaos Emeralds. If he could acquire all three sources, then nothing would stand in his way and the world would become the Eggman Empire, thus preventing our lineage from becoming a complete and utter joke! Thus with my assistance and his low-tech Metal Sonic, we captured all of your closest friends and implanted them with Nega Hyper-go-on energy, while we also worked on our own separate projects along with a combined one…The Egg Continent you stand on this very moment!"_

Eggman Nega's story comes to an end, leaving more questions than they do answers. Sonic addresses one of them right off the bat, stating to Nega "Ha! If Eggman's planning on swiping energy from the Chaos Emeralds, he's out of luck! I have all seven of them on me right now! He's wasting his time!"

Nega's grin widens as far as it possibly could, and he says to the blue hedgehog "Now…Who said anything about him drawing energy from the Chaos Emeralds? There is more than one way to get negative Chaos Emerald energy…And Angel Island holds the secret to this end."

Knuckles is puzzled by this, and with a tilt of his head he says "H-Huh? Angel Island?" Nega responds to the echidna's bewilderment by stating "Of course. The birthplace of the Chaos Emeralds still holds many secrets, some of which even it's guardian does not know. But that isn't the only thing with a secret up it's sleeve…"

Sonic states towards Nega with a wag of his pointer finger "Oh please Eggman Nega. I freed all of my friends, crushed all of your robots, and I have all seven Chaos Emeralds in my possession. I mean hey, if you want to bust out one more machine then go right ahead, I'll crush it and go deal with Eggman with time to spare!" The blue hedgehog pounds his fist against one of his palms and smirks after saying all that.

Nega, with his grin ever-present, says to the cocky hedgehog "Oh? Who ever said I was done with your friends? Let me tell you something…Shadow. Knuckles. Amy. Cream. The Chaotix. Rouge the Bat. E-123 Omega…All of them have been your ally at some point or another, but isn't there someone you might have forgotten to consider?"

Sonic gasps in shock, and says in a jokingly fearful tone "No! You wouldn't dare send Big the Cat to fight me, would you?!"

Eggman Nega's grin fades out into an annoyed scowl as he proclaims "No you idiot! That's not who I'm talking about!"

The blue hedgehog then raises his right hand up and counts off other names while tapping down on his fingers "Emerl? Bean the Dynamite? Bark the Polar Bear? Dare I say, Mighty the Armadillo?" With each time Nega say an increasingly angered "NO!"

While Sonic and Nega exchanged this banter with one another, Riku glanced off to the left and tried to slowly creep away from the scene, thinking to himself _"I need to chase after the real Eggman before he gets to Angel Island. Sonic and the other should be able to handle Nega…" _

As the teenage Overlord leaps into the air ready to take flight, however, he is suddenly grabbed by a telekinetic force and covered in a field of light-green energy. With his body froze in place, he is helpless as he is swiftly slammed against the ground with enough force that it distracts Sonic away from the monitor to look at the boy. "Huh? What's going on here?"

The blue hedgehog turns back ahead as a ball of fire nearly burns his face clean off. "Whoa!" He proclaims as he looks forward and sees the person responsible for the attack standing in the near-center of the arena. It was a light-purple furred cat wearing a regal violet outfit with white pants. Her hair was bundled up by a ruby clip on the back of her head, making it look a lot like the flames that burned out around her left glove. The cat stared blankly at the heroes with her golden eyes, but she was not the only one who shared in this action.

Floating in mid-air off to the right of her thanks to telekinesis was another hedgehog of silver coloring. His hair was arranged above his forehead in five different directions, with two ears stuck between them on both sides. He wore gloves with light-blue runs etched onto them that reached towards the cybernetic-looking bracelets around his wrists. His shoes had aquamarine toes and black stripes on both sides leading up to two more bracelets right below his kneecaps. He was also covered in the same light-green aura that captured Riku, though he shuts it off and lands on the ground at Eggman Nega's command just a moment later.

"Silver? Blaze?! You got to be kidding me, not you too!" Sonic proclaims with a look of utter shock on his face.

Eggman Nega takes delight in explaining to the blue hedgehog "Always cover all of your bases…And what better way to destroy you then by using my two greatest arch nemesis's power against you! Oh, and by the way…"

Nega presses down on a button in front of his body, and in an instant the front of the tower opens up and launches two large metal cuffs through the air. Knuckles is captured by one of the cuffs and pulled far enough away from the rest of the group that he is launched off of the arena, followed by Tails being clasped around the tails and sent after Knuckles. Sonic quickly runs to the edge of the arena, with the electricity stopping him from going far enough to grab Tails and pull him back to safety. The yellow fox lets out a fearful proclamation of "Sonic!" as he falls, and the blue hedgehog responds to this with an equally frightened "Tails, no!"

With Tails' fate unknown as he continues to fall towards the Final Fortress, Sonic turns around and glares at Eggman Nega angrily, and after running back beside Shadow he whips out the Chaos Emeralds and changes into his Super form while declaring "You'll pay for this Nega! Come on Shadow, let's get ready to rumble!"

The black hedgehog nods his head in agreement, and with the Chaos Emeralds in his presence he too changes into his Super Forms, which replaces all of his black fur with gold and does little else besides that. Staring down at two super-powered hedgehog from behind his monitor, Eggman Nega states confidently "You think I'm scared of you two? I was waiting exactly for this moment…This is why I didn't send these two after you sooner after all!"

Giving commands to both Blaze and Silver, Eggman Nega watches as the cat pulls out seven different colored emeralds shaped somewhat like rectangles. Using them, Blaze is covered in a massive pillar of fire that transforms her into a different form. Her fur becomes a bright pink and her jacket turns a burning red, with her cuffs becoming engulfed in magenta flames and her body is surrounded in a red aura that resembles the hottest of flames.

Meanwhile, Silver utilizes the Chaos Emeralds to transform, gaining a bright golden-yellow color fut with his mane becomes a darker yellow color that floats up behind his head. His eyes become a ruby red color, and the glow on his gloves, cuffs and boots become bright yellow as a golden aura surrounds his body. Sonic comments in a surprised tone of voice "What?! Silver can use the Chaos Emeralds as well?!"

Eggman Nega grins and mentions "Is that really so surprising? Blaze, Silver, destroy these three interlopers for your master!" With this order declared, Super Silver and Burning Blaze nod their heads and glare angrily at their opponents ready for battle.

However, before it could truly begin, a flash of piercing white light drops across the arena, causing everyone gathered to turn and look at Riku, who had now changed into his Light form as he lifted himself up off the ground. He quickly sheathed his katana though and folded his arms in front of his chest as he glared up at Eggman Nega, saying to him in a calm yet subtly irritated tone of voice "Your victory won't be easy Eggman Nega…Not so long as I'm around."

Eggman Nega scowls at the boy's ever-present presence and says to him "Yes, your existence here has been very, VERY troublesome for all of our plans so far…Rest assured boy, I will wipe you out along with the rest of my opposition. There is no escape now, prepare to die!"

_Next Time: Fatal Five-Way Brawl_


	18. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: The Brawl of Four Worlds Part 2**

Riku glances around the battlefield as the two hedgehogs on his side glares at Silver and Blaze, their bodies frozen in place above the ground. The teenage Overlord raises an eyebrow towards Blaze in particular, recognizing the heat of her flames while he thinks _"I should focus my efforts on her…It'd be hard for me to deal with Silver's telekinesis, even with my current speed." _

The teenage Overlord nods his head and looks all at Blaze, saying to himself afterwards _"Can't use my sword now. I'm not fighting robots…" _The boy then decides to make the first move in the battle, putting a lot of stress off of Sonic and Shadow in the process. Riku runs along the ground towards Blaze, his movements barely noticed by his two mind-controlled opponents and his allies.

Silver swings his arms at Riku and uses his telekinesis to trap him in place just inches before he swings his fist at Blaze. The burning cat doesn't even flinch despite how close the boy was to her, but that was mostly a result of the mind-control. Blaze raises her right hand and prepares to burn Riku with her powered up flames while he was kept in place. Pushing through the power of the telekinesis, the teenage Overlord cracks a smile much to his opponent's puzzlement.

Sonic thrusts through the air, flying underneath Riku's body and ramming Blaze straight away from where she currently floats. Shadow then throws out a ton of Chaos Spears at Silver while the hedgehog was distracted, doing enough damage to throw him off-guard and break his telekinetic hold on Riku. The teenage Overlord wastes little time in landing on the ground, taking a deep breath in after being clasped by the telekinesis, and running after Sonic to help him out with Blaze.

When the smoke from the Chaos Spears falls, we find Silver holds his right hand out while using his powers to hold about five of the projectiles that failed to hit him. He turns to look at Shadow as the black hedgehog folds his arms in front of his chest and comments "Come on Silver, let's see what you got."

Shadow pulls his arms out beside him and charges them with Chaos Energy, and as Silver flings his Chaos Spears back at him the black hedgehog swings his right arm out in front of him to send out enough projectiles to counter them. He then tries to follow up with his left arm, only for Silver to use his powers to bind Shadow in place. Using said powers to apply pressure to the black hedgehog's body for a good five seconds, Silver follows up on this matter by thrusting his hands out and releasing a burst of psychic energy that launches Shadow far away from his body.

Even with the pressure to his muscles, Shadow didn't take enough damage to be sent flying far before he thrust his arms out beside himself and broke his flight. Silver follows up by flying straight at him, his speed being far less then that of the other two hedgehogs yet still enough for him to close the gap in two seconds. With his psychic powers, Silver throws his right fist out, creating a mental construct shaped like a golden fist to hit Shadow square in the body.

The black hedgehog folds his arms in front of his body to block the brunt of the attack, which creates a telekinetic shockwave that bends the edge of the arena right below them. When the construct vanishes Shadow quickly uses Chaos Control to appear in front of Silver in an instant, dropping down with his right elbow extended to slam the psychic hedgehog right in the head. The forehead blow deals a little damage, but not enough for Silver to be unable to retaliate.

Shadow realizes though and quickly uses Chaos Control again to warp behind Silver as the hedgehog raises his hands up and tries to grasp his opponent in his telekinetic hold. The black hedgehog appears behind Silver and kicks him straight in the head, but the strength of his attack doesn't send the psychic hedgehog flying. Instead when the attack connects Shadow finds his leg covered by a light-green field which quickly extends to the rest of his body.

It is revealed that Silver surrounded himself with a telekinetic field filled with odd runs in order to deal with Shadow's Chaos Control attempts, and as the black hedgehog is thrown away by a powerful psychic burst he finds himself incapable of recovering until he is a good twenty feet away from the battlefield. The black hedgehog flips himself around once he gets a grasp on his flight again, cursing the move his opponent has made for a brief moment before he notices Silver floating in place with his hands raised and his body covered with a psychic aura.

Shadow watches as Silver pulls multiple metal platforms and torn out turrets from down below, crunching them all together into a gigantic ball of debris that he quickly throws at the black hedgehog. The thrust of the psychic energy covered ball makes it travel swiftly through the air, but Shadow flies to the right to dodge the attack. While he is successful in that endeavor though, Silver fires a beam of psychic energy that is barely visibly amongst the raindrops in the sky.

The beam paralyzes Shadow in mid-air, capturing him in a tiny veil of light-green psychokinetic energy that forces his arms against the sides of his body. Silver then uses his powers to draw forth more debris to crunch together into a gigantic ball, which should certainly hit it's mark now that Shadow was unable to move. The ball is launched after it hovers a few seconds above Silver's head, and though Shadow tried to use Chaos Control with a thought the paralysis affected even his mind to the point of rendering him incapable of doing anything but scowl in concern.

With the ball only ten feet away from impact, it takes a timely interventions from Sonic to save Shadow from getting irreversibly damaged. In this case, however, it was by complete accident as during Riku and the blue hedgehog's battle against Blaze the burning cat is launched through the air like a molten bullet that pierces right through the center of the ball and destabilizes it rather quickly. The ball breaks apart and each piece of debris falls back towards the Final Fortress with Sonic making an appearance before the black hedgehog in the midst of his pursuit of Blaze.

Sonic turns towards Shadow and grins, saying "Hey, don't get too caught up there buddy, I'd prefer to NOT deal with Silver." Before he flies off to continue fighting Blaze. Riku, who was following close behind, notices that Shadow is paralyzed and quickly turns his head to look at Silver, where he then decides to perform a detour by zipping through the air in a curved streak of light and punching the psychic hedgehog straight across the face with a flyby strike that's strong enough to make Silver flinch and break his concentration on Shadow.

With the black hedgehog freed, Riku breaks his flight momentarily and spins around, taking all the excess light energy created from his trail to form a sphere of energy that he fires upon Silver before the hedgehog can recover and bind him again with his powers. The attack, covering Silver in a blinding flash, leaves him unable to defend himself as Shadow regains control of his body and uses Chaos Control to instantly warp in front of Silver's body, where he knees him straight in the gut to disorient him.

Shadow follows up on this by performing a few hard hitting punches across Silver's body, using all of his strength with each blow to ensure that the psychic hedgehog would not be able to fight back for a bit. For his final blow, the black hedgehog covers his fist with Chaos Energy and uppercuts Silver in his chin, flipping him quite a distance higher into the sky. The black hedgehog swings his arms beside his body and declares "Playtime is over, time to step it up!"

Back with Sonic and Riku, the two have managed to drive Blaze far away from the battlefield, close to the thickets of clouds covering the air. The burning cat recovers from the blow that launched her through Silver's debris and tightly clenches her fists, throwing her right fist out right as Sonic charges straight at her, hitting him hard in the skull and sending him flying away with a shockwave of violet flames that disappears with the rain in a second.

Blaze follows up on this attack by increasing the intensity of the flames around her body to such a point that when the rain touches down on her aura she rapidly produces a field of smoke around herself. The smoke grows to such a size that it covers both Riku and Sonic, who had recovered from the previous attack and rubbed the top of his head while letting out a nonchalant chuckle. "Huh, what's this now?" He says while pumping his fists into the air.

The smoke was so thick that not even Blaze's flames could be seen, but because Riku and Sonic were so close to each other they were able to see each other just fine. Sonic folds his arms in front of his chest and tries to look for any signs of the burning cat, only to see a light red glow heading straight for his head. He ducks down to dodge a bullet shaped projectile of violet flames, smirking and commenting "Hehehe, so, trying some hit n' run tactics there Blaze?"

Sonic lifts himself back up and swings his right hand out to bat away another, weaker projectile that headed his way not long after the last one. Riku comments "I can't pick Blaze up within this smoke…And it's going to be a while before this fades away."

The blue hedgehog exclaims excitedly "Then light this place up and I'll get to work! But watch your back too, ok?" Sonic then zips off after that remark, leaving Riku to nod his head confidently and extend both of his arms out beside his body, which is followed up by the teenage Overlord launching multiple spheres of light that are bright enough to pierce through the thick smoke and cast a shadow on Sonic's body for a couple moments.

With that bit of info telling Riku that what he's doing is correct, the teenage Overlord holds his hands together in front of his body to increase the power of his light based attacks, which he utilizes to launch a larger sphere of light off to the left in an attempt to find Blaze. The sphere causes a shadow to appear that is shaped like a cat, and Sonic quickly dashes off to the left after the figure. But Blaze fights back against Sonic by launching a violet flamed spear at him, leading to the blue blur taking that attack head on a mere second later.

The spear breaks apart and blows Sonic back, consuming him with a bullet shaped veil of fire for a few brief moments while Blaze zips off before Riku can use another sphere of light to keep her shadow in view. The teenage Overlord goes on guard at that point while Sonic recovers from the attack, and with a bit of heat flowing through the air in spite of the smoke Riku raises his left armguard and blocks a spinning flame kick from Blaze. _"Shouldn't have tried that…" _Riku thinks to himself in a calm manner the very moment he notices the surprise on the cat's face.

Utilizing a flash of light radiating brightly off of his armguard, Riku has assured that Sonic will come over to help with Blaze in a couple moments. The teenage Overlord follows up on this quickly thought move by pulling his left arm back and going for a punch with his right hand. But Blaze spins around rapidly, not letting the boy hit him by wrapping herself in a tornado of furious violet flames. Riku can't retract his hand in time, causing it to be singed upon making contact with the fire before he pulls it back and uses a flap of his wings to go back and dodge the multiple hits of the tornado.

Sonic sprints back into battle once Blaze stops using her tornado, charging straight into her with enough force to drag her along the sky as he moves until he pushes her out of the smoke and back into the raining atmosphere. The blue hedgehog swings his arm outward to knock the burning cat away, at which point Sonic does something he rarely does and uses Chaos Control to warp in front of Blaze's flight path and use a spinning upward kick to knock her higher up while simultaneously increasing her disorientation period.

Riku flies out of the smoke and notices Blaze high up into the air, and as Sonic catches the boy's presence he boosts up in front of the burning cat and exclaims "Heads up Riku!" The teenage Overlord then readies light energy and calmly focuses on Blaze to increase his power, leading to him attempting to clamp his hands together to hit her with a powerful shockwave attack. However, a bombardment of light-green shrouded energy spears come his way and impacts the front of his armor.

The armor is chipped by this attack, and he is unable to strike Blaze in time before she recovers and quickly performs a spinning burning kick with her right foot that strikes Riku straight in the face and makes him stumble back a couple feet through the air. Sonic is then struck in the back by Shadow's flung body, causing both figures to be stunned in mid-air long enough for Super Silver to fly beside them and swing his hands out to bind them with psychic energy.

Shadow and Sonic twitch as they are kept paralyzed in the air. Riku wanted to rescue them by attacking Silver directly, but Blaze currently floated in front of him in a graceful stance as her cuffs burned with dark violet flames. "Yeah, I know I'm not freeing them until I get past you…" Riku calmly states to the burning cat as he covers his armguards with hardened light.

Blaze makes the first move by launching herself at the boy and throwing a kick at his head. The teenage Overlord ducks to the left to avoid the blow and tries to follow by attacking the leg with his left armguard. The hesitation to use all of his power allows Blaze enough time to pull her leg back and flip away from the range of Riku's punch. Blaze follows up on this move by summoning flames in the palm of her hands and tossing two fireballs at the boy to force his guard up.

The teenage Overlord passively stands in mid-air and uses a shield of light around the front of his body to block the projectiles, in the process anticipating Blaze flipping over his body and attempting an attack from behind while his vision is obscured by black smoke. Riku collapses his wings and hardens them with light, but Blaze manages to outthink the boy by throwing a punch of heat into the middle of his wings. With his most vulnerable body part struck with the intensity of a sun's flames, the teenage Overlord grimaces in pain long enough for his calmness to break and the shield in front of his body to go along with it.

Blaze then twirls around in mid-air, getting in front of the boy's body and attempting to perform another kick into his face to deal further damage. However, the teenage Overlord quickly throws his right hand out and launches a barely visibly burst of light that strikes Blaze and blows her back through the air. The attack wasn't very strong because Riku fired that attack off in a moment of impatience, but it just enough for him to regain his offensive once the pain subsided from his back.

A bit of sweat drips off of Riku's face as he takes in a deep breath, and he charges forward and calmly throws a powerful punch to send the burning cat flying towards the tower at the end of the arena. Her body slams into it and creates an indent, keeping herself placed there for a few moments and allowing the teenage Overlord to deal with Silver.

The psychic hedgehog was crunching Sonic and Shadow's muscles and bones with his power, making certain that only a strong blow to his body would release his grip on them both. Silver notices Blaze's departure from the battlefield and looks down to try and find the boy before he can launch an attack straight at him, but the teenage Overlord instead opts to use his speed in order to get behind Silver and strike him with a mighty kick to the back of his head.

Silver's tenuous grip on Shadow and Silver vanishes, freeing them as the hedgehog is sent flying away from where he once floated. Riku then swings his left hand down to the handle of his katana and sprints forward in pursuit of the psychic hedgehog as the two other hedgehogs turn to look at him for a brief moment. They then look off to the right and see Blaze pulling herself out of the tower, at which point they push their focus more onto her in spite of being drained of energy by Silver's telekinetic attack.

Nodding their heads, Sonic and Shadow rush at Blaze to take care of her while Silver recovers from being attacked and throws out a burst of psychic energy that stabilizes him in a way that has him face the teenage Overlord. Riku draws his katana from his sheath mid-flight and fires off a crescent wave of light in an attempt to deal hefty damage to Silver. But the psychic hedgehog holds his right hand out and creates a tiny sword of psychic energy that he swings out to cut the light in half.

Riku grinds to a halt surprised by this move of Silver's, but he doesn't waste time lingering in mid-air so the hedgehog could use his psychic powers against him again. To keep Silver on the defensive with that sword of his, the teenage Overlord swings his katana out twice to fire two more waves of light, moving slowly forward with each passing second while Silver takes down his attacks.

Riku repeats this process a few more times until he is right in front of the hedgehog's body, at which point he makes sure that when he swings his weapon he is able to instantly sheath it and use the excess light energy to cover his armguard and swing it straight at Silver's body. Expectedly though, the psychic hedgehog dispels his sword and uses both of his hands to bind the boy's arm in place before the blow is struck.

Silver has to struggle quite a bit though to keep Riku from hitting him though, as the light energy built up was rather powerful thanks to how calmly the boy was handling the situation. While the psychic hedgehog worried about a physical attack so much that he didn't paralyze the rest of Riku's body, the teenage Overlord smirked and used but a thought to release all of the light energy built up in his armguard in one forward burst.

The burst of light was strong enough to send Silver flying upward, breaking his telekinetic grasp on Riku's arm and dealing hefty damage in the process. In fact, the attack was so powerful that it broke the psychic hedgehog out of his Super form, leaving him spiraling around in a semi-unconscious state as he descends towards the ground below. But being the nice guy he is, Riku flies up and grabs Silver before he falls into the water underneath the Egg Continent. He then throws the hedgehog over his right shoulder and says quietly to himself "Glad that worked out well…"

Back with Blaze, Shadow and Sonic are using their speed to their great advantage here. With their bodies zipping back and forth through the air, they keep the burning cat from being able to strike them even once with the onslaught of fireballs she launches from around her body as she rapidly spins around inside of her flaming tornado. With the way things were now, the burning cat had no choice but to try and deceive the two hedgehogs by heating her flames up to the point that she creates a thick area of smoke around her body.

This time though, Sonic wasn't about to let himself be fooled, and rapidly spun around in a single spot to the point that he creates a tornado of wind that sucks up the smoke and blows it all away. Shadow then flies at Blaze and fills his fist with Chaos Energy before hitting her square in the gut as she finishes her tornado attack. The blow to her gut is followed up by Blaze recoiling back a bit and raising her right hand up weakly, where she fires a close-range fireball that hits Shadow as he pulls his fist back.

With the black hedgehog having taken damage that dizzied him for a few moments, it was up to Sonic to finish the job, which he did by curling up into a ball and rapidly spinning around to gather energy into his body. Once he was fully charged, his golden form glowed brightly as he uncurled and thrust himself at Blaze in a light speed thrust of power that collides straight on with her back and after a momentary pause sends her flying straight down into the center of the arena, creating a large indent in the metal tiles where she lies on her back taken right out of her Sol Emerald powered form.

Shadow and Sonic fly down to the edge of the arena and notice that Blaze has also lost the Nega Hyper-go-on energy around her head, meaning that they had succeeded in freeing her from Eggman Nega's control. Sonic and Shadow then felt safe breaking out of their Super forms and landing on the ground, and the blue hedgehog gives his ally a quick thumbs-up and a smile while saying "Thanks for the help there Shadow, couldn't have done it without you!"

The black hedgehog lets out a light "Hmph" after being thanked by Sonic, trying to act cool about the whole thing as he crosses his arms in front of his chest but subtly giving the hedgehog a thumbs-up of his own during the process. Riku lands on the ground beside Sonic and gently lays Silver on the ground in front of him, turning back into his normal form as the rain starts to disappear from the atmosphere after what felt like an eternity of it's presence.

"So I guess you two took care of Blaze?" Riku asks the obvious of the two hedgehogs, and Sonic nods his head and puts on a semi-serious look as he and Shadow turn towards the tower with Eggman Nega's fuming face present on the monitor. Sonic then says "We aren't done here yet. We still need to crack one egg wide open!"

Eggman Nega pounds at his keyboard with both of his fists in a blind fury, screaming at the top of his lungs to the two hedgehogs and the mysterious boy especially "You interfering little pests! I will not allow you to have this victory today! We should have been victorious from the very start! You never should even gotten onto this outdated piece of junk let alone this far! I cannot let you escape here alive…It doesn't matter if I perish, for there will always be a future where I shall exist!"

The madman raises his finger up and presses down on a glowing red button in front of him, and Sonic quickly recalls the nuclear reactor built into the Egg Continent and reacts with a fearful proclamation of "No, stop!" But Shadow remains calm and actually smirks at Eggman Nega's attempt to take everyone here down with him.

Shadow's confidence in this smirk pays off, as not a single sound emerges from the Egg Continent below, causing Eggman Nega to repeatedly tap down on the button under the assumption that there was a fault in the connection, but when the nuclear reactor fails to detonate he lets out a very unnerved cackle and says "Hehehehe…It's alright…I STILL HAVE AN ORBITAL LASER SYSTEM THAT WILL WIPE THIS ENTIRE BATTLESHIP OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH!"

Eggman Nega switches to another button on his keyboard as Shadow's calm demeanor breaks and he turns to the monitor far too late to be able to use Chaos Control to stop Nega from performing his action. However, just like before, Nega is incapable of accomplishing his goal as intended, causing him to crack even further under the weight of disappointment at how everything was going. "GRAAAAAAH!" Nega raises his hands towards his mustache and starts tearing away at it as he swings his head around and babbles like a lunatic for a good few seconds.

"Hedgehogs…Hedgehogs and hedgehogs everywhere…Cats and failure, failure and cats! Interlopers, hedgehogs, cats and failure…Hahahahaha….HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…HAJHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAH!" When the madness exclaimed by the insane Eggman Nega was at an end, he hung his head low and pulls his hands away from his face, which was battered rather well from the abuse he put on it just now. After a few seconds of silence, he raises his right hand and presses down on one last button in front of him.

In a matter of moments, the tower he was inside of began to transform, the segments spreading apart connected all by greased metal springs as the sides of the tower's body open up multiple compartments and summons forth multiple grungy looking arms that each wield a weapon of different description. The head of the tower distorts into a more fearsome shape, and Eggman Nega lifts his head up on the fading monitor in front of the machine he sprung to life as he declares "DIE, HEDGEHOGS!"

As Eggman Nega prepares to attack with the two hedgehogs and Riku, he suddenly hears a female voice call out to him "Hey, you live Sonic and Shadow alone!" Suddenly, a large pink and yellow is thrown straight into the head of the robot, the metal head hitting it hard enough to make Eggman Nega take pause from his attack in order to see who struck him.

Gathered on the slick metal elevator from the Final Fortress is all of Sonic and Shadow's allies. Amy, Cream and Cheese, the Chaotix, Rouge and Omega, and Tails and Knuckles were all there staring up at Eggman Nega ready for battle. Amy grabbed her Piko Piko Hammer as it came back to her, turned towards Sonic with a confident smile as the hedgehog looked at her and said "Looks like we got here just in time Sonic!"

The blue hedgehog, with a look of both surprise and joy on his face, says to Amy "Well, didn't expect to see you here Amy. Where have you been?"

Amy smiles and says "Oh, I was just busy doing what you and Shadow failed to do and dealt with both Eggman's nuclear reactor AND the communications tower that was connected to his orbital laser, thank you very much." She had a little bit of arrogance in her voice, but it sounded well-deserved from what she was saying.

Vector interjects after nudging Amy aside slightly, saying to both hedgehogs and Riku "Well, more like she nearly BLEW US ALL TO BITS by hammering at the console of the nuclear reactor, but hey if that's what you want to brag to Sonic about go right ahead."

Rouge then says "Amy did help us out with the communications tower though. Who knew that smashing the power box to bits would have been more effective than trying to hack the system?"

Sonic looks over at Tails after chuckling at Rouge and Vector's remarks, saying to his buddy with a relieved look in his eyes "Glad you made it back here safely Tails. You too Knuckles."

Tails says to his true blue friend with a humble tone of voice "Well let's be honest Sonic, it's not hard to get out of a pair of cuffs when you got a screwdriver and about a minute before you hit the ground. Then we managed to catch up with the others and after hacking the elevator we managed to get up here just as Eggman Nega summoned his robot."

With the yellow fox's explanation out of the way, Eggman Nega exclaims in utter disbelief "I don't care how many of you there are! Rodents, reptiles, insects and robots…No matter how many species you throw at me, you will all fall at the hands of the Egg Imperial Tower!"

"Hey, Eggman Nega!" Another bravely spoken voice calls out to the madman, in a matter of seconds an explosion covers the face of the Egg Imperial Tower as it is struck by a quickly bundled up ball of debris that was scattered across the arena. Sonic and Shadow turn to look at Silver, who was barely kneeling on the ground with his hands outstretched in front of him.

"Huh? You're back up already Silver?" Sonic says with a look of surprise on his face. The psychic hedgehog turns towards the blue hedgehog and says to him in response "No time for pleasantries Sonic…We'll handle Eggman Nega."

Blaze slowly walks up from the dent in the ground and looks at the Egg Imperial Tower, barely glancing over at the two hedgehogs while saying in a tough yet quiet feminine voice "You two need to hurry up and catch Eggman before he can find what he wants on Angel Island."

Sonic, amazed at Blaze and Silver's persistence to fight Eggman Nega's mech in spite of how badly hurt they appeared to be, smirked and said in a thankful tone of voice "Alright, we'll get right on that. All of you better stay alive now, ok?"

Blaze and Silver nod their heads, and the rest of Sonic's friends do so behind them while saying their own variations of "Ok!" Tails and Knuckles then run up beside the blue hedgehog, with Tails pointing out with a smile on his face "No way am I missing out on this one Sonic!"

And Knuckles makes it plain and clear that "I don't care what Eggman's after. I'm not going to allow him to set foot on Angel Island again, not on my watch!"

Riku looks out past the arena and sees the floating wonder that is Angel Island in the distance, and after turning to look at Shadow he comments "Hey Shadow, think you can use Chaos Control to get all of us to the island?"

The black hedgehog smirks and says confidently "We have all seven Chaos Emeralds…Shouldn't be a problem for me." After taking one last look at Sonic's friends, the group of five is sent away from the arena by Shadow's quick Chaos Control.

One of the arms of the Egg Imperial Tower tries it's hardest to prevent this effort, but misses just as the heroes blink away from sight. Eggman Nega then raises his mech up and looms over the remaining heroes as they stare up at him ready for battle. "Fine then, I'll just squash all of you little gnats and make sure that Sonic never sees you again!" Is the last thing he declares before the battle truly begins…

_Next Time: The Unexpected Interloper_


	19. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: The Final Distractions**

Shadow's Chaos Control warps Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Riku and himself to Angel Island in an instant. They find themselves at the northern edge of the island close to the Master Emerald shrine, where the grand emerald jewel remains untouched at the top of the shrine much to the echidna's surprise as he turns his head towards it the moment he recognizes the landscape.

"What? Eggman had plenty of time to go after the Master Emerald, so why didn't he?" Knuckles asks in a puzzled tone of voice as he walks a few steps towards the shrine.

"Weren't you listen Knuckles? He wasn't planning to go after any of the Emeralds from the start. He is searching for something else on Angel Island." Tails points out as he gestures towards his dim-witted friend.

Knuckles turns around and points at Tails with a scowl on his face, saying as he grits his teeth slightly "I heard everything just fine Tails, but if he's looking for negative Chaos Energy then the Master Emerald would be the best place to look…Right?"

Sonic comments "Knuckles, the Master Emerald HAS no negative Chaos Energy. That's why it's able to keep the Chaos Emeralds in check. Sheesh, for a guardian you really can't keep your information straight regarding the things you're supposed to be guarding."

After the blue hedgehog shrugs his shoulders towards the red echidna, Knuckles comments in a none-too-amused tone "I don't have a good memory, alright?!"

Shadow, ignoring the comments of Team Sonic's group, focuses on ahead and notices a large hole in the side of one of the mountains past the bridge connecting the shrine to the rest of the island. Glancing at it with familiarity, he says to grab everyone else's attention "Say, doesn't that hole look familiar to anyone else?"

Knuckles looks at the hole that Shadow is pointing towards and immediately slams his fists together, commenting to the black hedgehog "I may not have a good memory, but I won't forget that hole anytime soon. I remember how that lunatic kid emerged from there and nearly blew up the planet before you and Sonic sent him packing."

Riku flinches momentarily as he hears this and turns to look at Sonic, asking him in a puzzled tone "You guys fought someone here on Angel Island recently?"

The blue hedgehog glances back at the boy and smirks, saying in a nonchalant tone "Yeah. He kind of had an aura of darkness around him and was probably around your age. He was a really serious guy too, didn't crack a joke or nothing while we fought…But eh, he's history by now."

The teenage Overlord then goes on to comment in his head _"That's odd…There's nothing in my memories of a game where Sonic and Shadow fought a boy of darkness on Angel Island. Come to think about it, there's nothing like what happened when I was helping Samus or Kirby either in my memories either…"_

Riku's thoughts are mixed with a guttural growl from the black dragon Takashi in the distance, and the boy comments towards the dragon as Sonic and Shadow discuss something quietly _"What's up Takashi?"_

"_This boy of darkness that hedgehog spoke of…I think I have an idea just who that is. It was likely-" _Before Takashi could reveal the name of the person to Riku, Eggman suddenly descends down in front of the heroes inside of his Egg Capsule vehicle, saying to the group gathered before him "Well well, it took you long enough to get here!"

Sonic immediately runs in front of Shadow and looks up at Eggman, brandishing a finger and proclaiming to him directly "You got some nerve showing your face around here after all you've done Eggman! What, controlling my friends wasn't enough, now you got to ruin Angel Island again?!"

The doctor swings his right arm out in front of his body in a bombastic manner as he leans over the front of his pod, saying to the blue blur swiftly "Oh please Sonic, I have no intention of turning this island inside and out to try and find what I need, especially when the way has already been opened for me!"

Shadow speaks up and notes "You're referring to the hole in the mountain, aren't you?" To which the doctor cracks a wide grin in response to.

"Very perceptive Shadow. You see, the secret to the last part of my plan resides deep within Angel Island's caves, far beyond anything all of you have ever witnessed before!" Eggman slams his hands against the edge of his pod at the end of his sentence and the leans back, relaxing his body in such a way that an air of arrogance could be seen around him.

Knuckles swings his left arm out and proclaims "That's crazy! I've been through this island many times and I've seen everything there is!"

Eggman rebuttals by pointing out to the puzzled echidna "Do you really believe that? Tell me Knuckles, did you ever bother to investigate the hole in the mountain after that boy of darkness created it?"

Sonic flinches in surprise, mentioning to the doctor as he gestures in front of his body "What? You were watching us at the time?"

"Of course I did. After all, a being from another world coming to Angel Island and causing my energy radar to go haywire definitely deserves some form of investigation. It's a tragedy that you got rid of him though Sonic, I would have LOVED to capture him and utilize his powers against you. But alas, for one loss you handed me I was given another discovery." Eggman states.

"In the aftermath of your battle, I used one of my tiny surveillance cameras to infiltrate the hole in the mountain and explore the caves. The caves are surprisingly spacious, so I had to wander around for quite a while before I found the ultimate treasure." Eggman's delay of the truth caused Sonic to swing his arm out and exclaim "Quit stalling and spill it Eggman! What did you find?!"

Eggman grins and leans back in his pod, folding his arms behind his head as he casually mentioned to the heroes "Haven't you always wondered where the Chaos Emeralds originated from? Deep inside Angel Island's caverns is a single chamber with walls filled with gems that look similar in texture and color to the seven Chaos Emeralds. And to my surprise there were parts of the walls cut out…Seven spots, to be exact."

Knuckles mutters out a surprised "W-What?" Before Eggman continues on to mention "But that's not all. You see, the gemstone walls were filled with a specific energy. Negative Chaos Energy, to be exact. Nothing pure was in them."

Tails waves his arms in front of him and says "That can't be right. Chaos Emeralds have pure and negative Chaos Energy inside of them. After all, that's how Sonic was able to transform even after Chaos drained them of their power."

Eggman says to the yellow fox in response "I myself though that was rather odd as well…Until I sat down and thought about what I knew about the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds. My theory on the matter is that long ago, the Echidnas created the Chaos Emeralds out of the gemstone walls, and then used the Master Emerald to balance out the Chaos Energy within them for their own purposes. They likely couldn't fully purify the Emeralds without breaking them entirely, so they settled for a balance between the two energies. But this is all speculation…All that's important for me is that there is a mine filled with more negative Chaos Energy waiting to be harvested for my ultimate weapon."

As Eggman finishes his explanation, the Master Emerald on the shrine starts to react oddly to the events unfolding outside. Riku senses the sudden shift in power coming from the Emerald and looks towards it, notices a liquid manifesting from it rather slowly on the top. But before he comments on this matter, Sonic says to the doctor with fists pumped in front of his body "Sorry Eggman, but we're crushing your plans right now!"

Eggman smiles and looks over at the heroes, saying in an unconcerned tone of voice "No Sonic, I'm afraid you are your comrades won't be touching me today."

Shadow swings his body to the side and glares up at Eggman, saying to him in a barely calm tone "After everything you and your grandkid has done, you shouldn't be acting so confident about that!" The black hedgehog then leaps at the doctor, who lets out a barely-visible grin as the blob of liquid on the Master Emerald leaps forward and intercepts Shadow, blocking his attempt to swing a karate chop down upon the doctor and throwing out a solid fist from his blob-like form to knock the hedgehog away.

The blob then lands on the ground in front of the pod as Shadow crashes on his back. In a matter of seconds the blob begins to form into a bipedal creature with two-toed feet, three-fingered hands, and two large pointed extensions coming from the back of his head. The creature was made of pure water and had a tiny membrane in his head that allowed him to operate. His eyes were aglow with light-green energy, but there was something rather odd about how his brain looked. It seemed darker in color than usual, which immediately got Tails thinking as everyone else focused on the creature.

"Chaos?! What are you doing out of the Master Emerald?!" Sonic blurts out in disbelief, especially after seeing the liquid creature defend Eggman from Shadow's attack.

Knuckles comments "I know Chaos is supposed to come out before a great crisis happens…But the first thing he does is save Eggman? Don't tell me he's gone rogue on us again."

Tails is the one who points out the truth to his friends as he accusingly says to Eggman "You used some of your Hyper-go-on energy to control Chaos, didn't you?"

The doctor smiles and says "Very perceptive my young foxy nemesis. Knuckles' assumption is correct though. Chaos was atop the Master Emerald before I arrived on the island. After a quick scuffle between the two of us I decided I would put him under my control and use him against you as one last distraction."

"Like we won't defeat Chaos in no-time at all!" Sonic boasts. But his bragging attitude is met by Eggman lifting his right hand up and snapping his fingers, which causes Chaos to whip his right arm forward and grab Sonic around his body before he can get out of the way.

The doctor then turns around and starts to fly off, saying to the heroes merrily "Have fun!" Riku tries to leap over the heroes in an attempt to chase after Eggman, but Chaos quickly uses his other arm to grab onto the boy and slam him against the ground while using his other arm to reach into Sonic's body and drain the negative energy from the Chaos Emeralds.

Chaos then lets go of Sonic and Riku and leaps back through the air in an instant, flying right off Angel Island and into the water far below. The blue hedgehog lands on his feet and tries to get a hold of his oxygen for a few seconds, commenting after the process was done "Ah great…This had to happen now? We really don't need another distraction…"

After a few more moments of waiting as Eggman enters the mountain caverns, the entirety of Angel Island rumbles below the feet of the heroes. A massive pillar of water rises up off to the left of the island, causing the heroes to turn their attention towards it as it forms into a mighty creature. The liquid monstrosity had a rather reptilian outer shell of pure dark blue water that covered it's pure liquid body, with eyes of piercing dark emerald and six watery tentacles rising up around it's body. Considering how high up Angel Island was from the water, this manifestation known as Perfect Chaos was one of the tallest creatures any of the heroes had ever encountered.

With the mass of pure water rocking Angel Island just due to it looming very close to the edge, Sonic and his friends had to work hard to keep their ground as Perfect Chaos opened it's fanged mouth and let out a roar powerful enough to brush away all the clouds in the sky within a hundred-mile radius. The blue hedgehog looks up at Chaos and says "Well, I didn't want to have to fight Chaos at first…But it's not every day you get to topple a titan as big as this guy!"

Sonic summons forth the Chaos Emeralds with a clench of his fist and him and Shadow quickly burst into their Super Forms to take care of Perfect Chaos while Tails and Knuckles do everything in their power to ensure that they don't fall off. The echidna blurts out to Sonic as he flies off "Yeah, you break him free from Eggman's control! I'll get to the Master Emerald and try and purge Chaos of the negative Chaos Energy!"

Knuckles starts to climb along Angel Island towards the shrine, while Tails looks around and comments in a puzzled tone of voice "Ummm…Where did Riku head off to?" Sure enough, the teenage Overlord had vanished from the field of battle…

For secretly, he had flown off and gone into the cave to chase after Eggman. Inside of the cave barely lit by a couple torches spread periodically across the walls, Riku runs through the tunnels in pursuit of the madman. A lack of diverging pathways made it easy to keep going, but even at the speed Riku was going it was taking him quite a while to see any signs of Eggman. He kept winding further and further down into the depths of Angel Island, but with another issue pressing on his mind he thinks to the black dragon Takashi _"Alright, what were you about to tell me?"_

"…_Right, sorry for dropping that conversation. If what the hedgehog said about age is correct, then the boy of darkness he fought off was more than likely the Dark King." _As the dragon explains himself to the teenage Overlord, Riku twitches in fear for a brief moment.

"_Why does that name sound familiar?" _The boy comments in a partially frightened tone of voice. _"…You don't know who that is?" _Takashi then asks hesitantly.

When Riku shakes his head, Takashi goes on to mention _"That's interesting. Even as a clone of a clone of the original Elemental Overlord you should know who the Dark King is. After all, he is your antithesis. Whereas you are supposed to help worlds that need assistance, the Dark King is supposed to cause trouble on worlds that indulge too much in peace. Like the original Elemental Overlord, the Dark King was tied to a prophecy of rebirth."_

"_So someone around my age inherited his powers?" _Riku asks. _"That is correct." _Takashi responds, as he goes on to then mention _"It happened a few years ago around the same time as the return of the Elemental Overlord. But from what we observed, the Dark King perished by his hands when they fought."_

"_If this journey has taught me anything, it's that it's really hard to keep a villain dead. Well, the Dark King isn't my concern at the moment…Especially since Sonic seems to have dealt with him already. I need to stop Eggman from getting to the Chaos Energy mines now." _The teenage Overlord says to end off his conversation with the black dragon.

But Takashi takes a moment to note to his friend _"Just be cautious…This doctor has proven to be more intelligent and nefarious than I could have possibly anticipated."_

Riku nods his head and starts to notice an increase in brightness in the atmosphere. A bright orange light, to be exact. With one last descent through the tunnels under Angel Island, Riku runs out onto a patch of hardened black and red lava rock leading towards a gigantic cavernous domain filled with bright orange-red lava and both stalagmites and stalactites. Flying through the air protected by a light shield of air is Eggman in his signature pod.

The teenage Overlord draws his sword out and stamps his right foot against the ground as he positions himself towards the doctor and exclaims "Eggman! Turn and face me!"

Hearing the confident proclamation of the interloping boy, the doctor turns around and looks down at him, standing upright and folding his arms behind his back as he smirks and says "Well well, to think that YOU would be the one who would split away from the rest of the group to try and stop me."

Riku comments "What, you were expecting Sonic?" To which Eggman responds with a swiftly timed "To be honest, yes I was. Shadow would be more than enough to handle Perfect Chaos, so Sonic would have split off from the group and come after me alone. But naturally, the plan didn't go as I expected it would, which has become something of a common, annoying thread ever since you showed up."

The teenage Overlord responds in turn with "Yeah, I kind of been noticing that on each planet I visit. Wherever I go, plans that would have otherwise succeeded have failed because I was there to defeat the villains when they were at their absolute strongest…Save for one instance where my presence left the world in ruins."

Eggman then asks "And how do you know that your presence here won't make things worse for Sonic and the others?"

Riku lowers his eyebrows and glares at Eggman while responding to his question with "I won't allow myself to fail again. Even if I have to sacrifice my life to accomplish this goal, I will not back down when a threat arises that a planet's heroes cannot yet handle. That is why I had to chase after you Eggman. I will not allow you to finish powering up your ultimate weapon!"

The doctor pauses for a few moments before cracking a grin in the face of Riku's boast, saying to him in turn "Is that so? You REALLY think you are capable of stopping me?"

The teenage Overlord comments "You don't know just WHAT I'm capable of Eggman." While tightening his grip around where the handle of his sword should be.

Eggman replies to this by pulling his arms out in front of his body and saying "You take me for a fool?! I've been paying close enough attention to your antics on the Egg Continent since you showed up. You displayed quite a few abilities during your time here, but all of them shared a common thread…They were all connected to elemental attributes. Fire, Electricity, and even Light itself bent to your whim. Connecting the dots, it's not hard to imagine that Water, Nature, Ice, Wind, Earth and even the very forces of Darkness itself are at your command!"

Riku breaks his calm demeanor for a moment as Eggman quickly puts everything together from what he saw, saying as he glances suspiciously as the doctor "Hmph…I guess you do know what I'm capable of."

Eggman then comments "If what you showed against Mecha-Dark Gaia is the best of your capabilities, then I do not fear you in the slightest. I will deal with you quickly and have plenty of energy left to finish off Sonic and anyone else!"

The doctor presses a single button on the console of his pod, folding his arms behind his back and walking towards the center of the pod as a glass dome protects him. His vehicle rises up into the air as a massive black, purple and white portal in the fabric of space and time opens up, surprising Riku entirely as a mechanical creation begins to emerge from within it. It was the titanic, dark red and black body of the second version of the Egg Dragoon, which was perfectly rebuilt from the ground up with all of it's spiky protrusions and glowing lights, along with the drill and artillery cannon arms. What was missing from the body were the wings, but soon enough other objects emerged from the portal to replace these parts and add onto the body as Eggman locked his pod into the top of the machine.

The first things to appear were two wings of silver and red with four large extensions at the end of where the membranes would be. These were the wings of the Egg Wyvern, which attached themselves firmly to the back of the Egg Dragoon's body. Next was a flying, snake-like machine with two large spiked discs attached to both sides of the main body. This was the Egg Viper, which slowly floated through the air and attached itself to the midsection of the Egg Dragoon, creating a secondary tail for the machine.

This was then followed up by two big metallic arms with four reddish fingers and buff looking muscles coming out from the portal and attaching themselves to the sides of the discs on the Egg Viper. These were the arms of Eggman's Big Arm robot from long ago, and after a matter of seconds the golden shield and lance of the Egg Emperor emerged from the rift and found themselves grasped by these gigantic hands.

The final part to emerge from the rift was a large monstrous mechanical purple creature with two long tentacles that had head-shaped claws and a few tubes filled with Nega Hyper-go-on energy on it's back. The Nega-Wisp Armor flips around so the mouth is pointed upward, and it attached itself perfectly onto the free space remaining on the back of the Egg Dragoon while flipping it's tentacles to the point that they were brandished at the teenage Overlord. The moment the Nega-Wisp Armor connects, the time rift disappears and a pulse of Nega Hyper-go-on energy surges through the body of this mechanical mash-up, covering it in a dark-violet aura.

Eggman, through the speakers of his machine, proclaims to the teenage Overlord "Now it's time to put this to the test! Egg Chimera, blow this child away!" The doctor slams his butt down on the seat of his pod and takes control of his mighty machine, activating the artillery cannon on the Egg Dragoon to aim it straight at the boy.

Riku readies himself for whatever was coming, but feels a surge of power far beyond his current power coming from the cannon just a moment before it fires and immediately thinks _"Eggman is capable of creating this type of power?!"_

A foggy blast of purple-energy is launched from the combined force of all four cannon barrels that speeds through the air and collides with Riku's body, creating a blast of corrosive Nega Hyper-go-on energy that covers the boy's body for a few moments, leaving Eggman to arrogantly proclaim in triumph "Ha! That was easier than I expected it to be!"

In a matter of seconds, the smoke lingering around Riku's body fades away, showing him on one of his knees with his sword planted into the ground behind him and his body looking severely damaged by the attack. But without making a single remark, the teenage Overlord lifts himself up slowly and swing his sword in a crescent until he cross his arm in front of his body and holds his sword towards the ground, using a blade of hardened air to carve up the lava rock shelf around him in order to create a platform that starts to float along the lava towards the gargantuan Egg Chimera.

With arm crossed against his chest, Riku swiftly changes into his Light form and throws his arms back beside his body, punching the air with enough force that a barrier of light appears to cover the entrance to this part of the cavern. He then spreads his wings out wide and flips his katana around to point it at Eggman, saying calmly to the madman "Sorry to subvert your expectations Eggman, but now the real battle begins!" With Eggman left scowling at Riku's survival, the doctor activates the engines of his Egg Chimera and pushes himself back through the spacious caverns as he readies all of his weapons for battle…

_Next Time: The Mighty Egg Chimera_


	20. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19: Egg Chimera I: Hail the Emperor**

With Riku in his Light Form and Eggman piloting his ultimate weapon, the combined mechanical creation known as the Egg Chimera, the two have engaged in combat in the spacious lava-filled caverns hidden far underneath Angel Island. The teenage Overlord leaps at the behemoth from the platform of lava rock he carved up and swings his katana at the highest cockpit of the Egg Dragoon's body, clashing with a barrier filled with hexagonal holograms that was around the glass dome.

The collision of the katana releases a shockwave of light that blocks Eggman's sly expression for a moment, and as Riku notices that he didn't even damage the barrier the doctor activates the laser blasters on the tips of the wings the very moment they flap. Curved lasers of pure orange energy surrounded by the pale-purple energies of the Nega Hyper-go-on material target the teenage Overlord, forcing him to pull himself away from the machine in one swift moment as all of the lasers collide in front of the glass dome.

Riku lands on the lava rock platform and after pulling his katana back he swings it forward with both hands and launches a wave of light energy at the center of the robot. The aura surrounding the Egg Chimera takes the light energy and dissipates it instantly. The teenage Overlord was surprised by this move, but didn't flinch for long and swung his sword back down after flipping the blade around with a single release on the handle to send another wave of light at the same spot.

The same thing happens, but Eggman doesn't comment on the matter save for a light chuckle as he swings the four-barrel artillery cannon towards the boy and proclaims "Fire!" Another sphere of foggy Hyper-go-on energy is fired at Riku, forcing the boy to sheath his katana for a moment and place his arm-guard forward to summon forth a shield of light around his entire body that takes the form of a prismatic dome.

When the projectile impacts the dome, Riku watches as a large series of cracks appears around it for a few seconds before it shatters apart into nothing. The teenage Overlord then draws out his sword again with the hand he used to summon the barrier as Eggman follows up on his last attack by rapid-firing more spheres from the spinning barrels of his artillery cannon. Using the edge of the blade with rapid swings in the air, Riku cuts down each and every sphere that comes his way, but this leaves him distracted long enough for Eggman to swing the bottom segment of his Egg Chimera forward and attack the teenage Overlord with the lance of the Egg Emperor.

The tip of the lance strikes at the side of the katana, launching him back as a bit of Nega Hyper-go-on energy is released from the blow. After one flip through the air, Riku swings his wings out one inch before he touches down on the lava. The teenage Overlord worried more about taking unnecessary damage from dipping into lava than he was of dying, but discarded those concerns as he did one brief dash through the air to land back down on his self-made platform.

As the Egg Chimera pulled the lower part of his body back and brushed it against the top of the lava, Riku examined the aura around the titanic machine a little bit further and realized that there was a second component to the aura besides the Nega Hyper-go-on energy. But before he commented on it in his head, Riku was forced to play defensive again as Eggman lashed out one of his Nega-Wisp Armors tentacles at him.

The teenage Overlord expected just the tentacle and waited for just the right moment to parry the blow with his katana, but then the Hyper-go-on energy wrapped around the machine pours towards the mouth of the tentacle and forms into a drill that strikes the chest plate of Riku's armor and rapidly spins around, grinding against it for a good five seconds as the teenage Overlord grits his teeth to bear the pain being inflicted upon his armor and ears while sparks fly out from the tip of the drill.

When Eggman pulls back on the tentacle, he comments in an arrogant tone of voice "I knew this would be easy, even once you increased your strength." But instead of respond to the doctor's remark Riku glances up at him while sheathing his sword and placing one hand calmly on the front of his armor as chunks of it fall off thanks to the drill.

Using his powers to heal the broken part of his armor, the teenage Overlord thinks to himself _"Eggman's mixture of Nega Hyper-go-on and Dark Gaia energies is poisonous for my Light element, I can't hope to keep fighting him in this form."_

"Now, perish!" Eggman points the drill arm at the boy after making this proclamation, and after a moment he fires the elongated drill at him to force him into the air. Riku leaps back and flaps his wings while moving his right hand to grab onto the handle of his katana as the drill shatters apart the lava rock platform, causing the boy to nonchalantly comment "I don't even know why I needed that…"

The drill falls into the lava, melting apart in the bed of molten liquid as the teenage Overlord passes over it and closes his eyelids to concentrate on his katana, thinking all the while _"Takashi…I wish to rely on some of your energy for this battle…" _

As he feels the black dragon nod in approval of this plan, Riku's armor of light shatters apart, leaving him back in his regular garb as the sheath and katana held beside his body vanishes into an ethereal conglomerate of black flames, most of which spread out across his body in the form of a hazy black aura. When these very flames touch the angelic wings remaining on his back, the feathers are burned away in order to be replaced with two very demonic looking fleshy black wings. Riku's hair also changes to black as his eyes become a dark-yellow the moment he opens his eyelids.

Once this transformation into his Dark form is complete, the teenage Overlord slowly takes his right hand out and melds the aura into the shape of a five-fingers jagged claw that he holds towards the Egg Chimera. Eggman says with intrigue in his voice "So, you plan to combat my quantities of negative energy with your darkness, hmmm? Maybe you will last a little bit longer with that plan of attack."

Riku looks up at Eggman's cockpit, his calm demeanor still remaining intact as he asks the doctor "Tell me Eggman…How much did you enjoy taking Sonic's friends and turning them against him?"

Eggman grins without so much as a hint of hesitation, responding to Riku's question with a gleeful "If Sonic is a gigantic thorn in my side, his friends are the multiple other thorns that increase the pain tenfold with their very existence! I took great pleasure in turning them all against him for all the suffering they have caused me as I tried to take over the world!"

The teenage Overlord's aura flares up as he clenches his fist and wraps his claws together, drawing in on the power of anger he feels upon hearing Eggman's answer to increase the strength of his darkness, at which point he states with the last recesses of his calmness "Thank you for that answer."

Giving in to aggression, Riku lunges himself at the Egg Chimera as a rift in time opens up to connect another drill to the currently empty arm. With his fist still clenched, the teenage Overlord punches the chest of the titanic machine with all of his might, causing three shockwaves of raw darkness to erupt from the center of the blow before the Egg Chimera is pushed back through the cavern, jolting Eggman back in the seat of his cockpit before he has a chance to react.

The shockwaves from the blow split the lava and upon hitting the ground cause streams of it to erupt into the air, casting a pale red light over Riku before he speeds away from the front of the Egg Chimera and goes straight for the backside. The remainder of the shockwave hits the ceiling and causes the entire cavern to rumble. Once Eggman regains control of his chair and pulls himself back to the control, he looks around for the boy's presence and exclaims "Where did he go?!" Only for his question to be answered when the teenage Overlord takes his right claw and performs an upward slash along the back of the Egg Chimera, scarring the air with crimson gashes that actually rips apart some of the aura covering the robot.

In response to this attack, Eggman fires the boosters on the left side of the robot to flip it around and try to use his drill in order to slash at the boy. Riku flies back though and only ends up having his aura nicked and pulled away from the rest of his body. The girth of the drill collides with the ceiling, breaking a large chunk of it and causing the caverns to tremble yet again. Eggman growls and proclaims "Hold still! You're going to bring the whole cave down at this rate!"

Riku holds his arms beside his body and proclaims to Eggman "Idiot, you're the one threatening to bring this place down!" He then thrusts both his hands out multiple times, sending a barrage of dark energy blasts at the Egg Chimera that covers the machine with explosions upon each impact before Eggman flaps it's wings to blow the smoke away while simultaneously firing the curved lasers from the tips of the wings in a random spread across the air in order to try and force Riku to get hit.

But in a moment of inspiration, the teenage Overlord combines his claws into one large talon and carves a gash into the air in front of him to send the lasers straight into another dimension. This earns him a surprised remark from Takashi, who says in the boy's mind _"Hey! Watch where you're sending those, they almost nicked my tail!" _

Riku, realizing the mistake he made as the gap closed in front of him, apologized to the black dragon with a simple thought of _"Sorry! Didn't know they would end up there." _He then went back on the aggressive against Eggman, lunging at him and using a hard hitting barrage of three claws strikes on the chest of the Egg Chimera to push the machine through the air with each blow, not noticing that the shockwaves from his attacks were breaking apart the ceiling with each impact.

The doctor barely tries to mount an offensive, because he's more concerned about destroying the caverns due to how little room he had to move his weapons around now that the boy was focusing on battling in mid-air. Thus, once Riku flew away from his last attack, Eggman quickly slammed down on a button in front of him while proclaiming "Time for a change of scenery!"

Just like when he summoned the parts of the Egg Chimera, a gigantic rift in the fabric of space and time emerges between both Riku and Eggman. The doctor pilots his machine into the rift while Riku flies through it accidentally after preparing to attack the machine again. Thrust through time and space for but a second, the teenage Overlord emerges from the other side of the rift into a new area.

The first thing Riku noticed minus the slight dizziness caused by going through time was that the air was much cooler than before, and the reason for that became apparent upon further observation of the area. He was now high above the clouds as the sky was dark blue to signify it was late at night, with platforms of steel and glass and a large arena hovering just along the top of the clouds in the sky. Around the platforms and arena lied tall turrets that were pointed straight at the boy.

The teenage Overlord turns around once he comes to grips with the fact that he was sent into the past and quickly ducks back to avoid being struck with the lance of the Egg Emperor. While he is pulled back, his entire body is slammed with the front of the Emperor's shield, causing him to be sent flying a fair number of yards away from the Egg Chimera before he recovers.

Riku brushes the bottom of his chin with the back of his right hands and grins, noting that he took a little more damage due to the shock of time travel weakening his powers momentarily. But he quickly regains his aggression as he sees the titanic machine in front of him. With the bottom segment flailing back into place, the teenage Overlord charges at him ready to take it apart in order to limit Eggman's options.

The first step was to deal with the lance and shield that protected the arms and tail. Coating his claws with hardened darkness, the teenage Overlord swipes at the lance to try and cut through the aura and dismantle the weapon into pieces, but Eggman spins the bottom segment around and uses the shield to block the attack. Riku's impact causes his arm to bounce back in recoil, a vibration of pain going through the muscles as he flies backwards to dodge the tail of the machine.

"Open fire!" Eggman proclaims to the turrets down below, causing them to fire their massive burning shells at the teenage Overlord while he shakes the pain out of his arm. Riku looks down and notices exactly twelve turrets coming at him from different directions, but all of them were converging on the same point in the air.

Riku flies up as the shells collide and set off a chain of giant explosions one after the other that follow the boy up a few yards into the air, leaving him vulnerable enough for Eggman to fire a hazy sphere of Nega Hyper-go-on energy at him from the artillery cannon. The blast caused by the impact launches the boy back a few feet and deals a little bit of damage, dissipating the aura around his body as he recovers.

The teenage Overlord looks down at the Egg Chimera and swings his right arm down, using his control over darkness to extend the length of his aura so he can utilize physical attacks from a safer distance. One claw strikes at the barrier surrounding Eggman's pod while the other swipes at the chest, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that these long arms weren't able to do as much damage as close-range attacks.

So Riku instead chooses to grasp onto both sides of the Egg Dragoon's shoulders and pull himself straight at the cockpit. Reeling his arms back in as he launches himself, the teenage Overlord flips himself around and combines his legs together, forming a spearhead of pure crimson and black darkness that impacts with the barrier around the pod and creates a shockwave that disperses some of the aura surrounding the robot but fails to crack the barrier itself.

"_This thing is really durable…" _Riku comments as he flips away from the cockpit of the robot to avoid being singed by the lasers launched from the wings, after which he proceeds to using one claw to strike at the top of the machine's chest with two swift attacks. This is then followed up by the boy being smashed in the side of his body by the drill of the Egg Chimera, sending him hurtling away from the machine for the time being.

As Riku spins around, he thinks to himself _"I feel like I'm barely able to put a dent into the Egg Chimera…" _Regaining his straightened posture as he ends this particular thought, he goes on to say to himself as he swings his right arm out to the side in order to create a sphere of pulsating crimson darkness _"I'll give Eggman credit again…He definitely would have probably defeated Sonic with this machine had I let him join along." _

Crunching the orb in his claw, Riku grins and then throws his claw right out to toss the pulsating black mass at the Egg Chimera. Eggman unsurprisingly takes the attack head-on, and as a collapsing blast of distorting black and purple energy covers the machine the aura surrounding him doesn't vanish even a bit. The teenage Overlord comments again as he dashes at the center of the blast he created _"If I can't do anything about this aura though…Then I won't fare any better than Sonic would."_

The teenage Overlord strikes the center point of the blast with his right fist to push the robot back quite a bit through the air, and Eggman follows up by locking on to the boy's energy signature since he couldn't see through the remnants of the blast and using the wing lasers while Riku was focused entirely on the chest. But with a grin on his face the boy warned the black dragon with a simple _"Heads up Takashi"_

The teenage Overlord swings his claw into the air to create a rift that sucks most of the lasers up, stretching his other hand down towards the bottom segment of the Egg Chimera to create a second rift that causes all of the lasers to impact the arms attached to the tail and make the entire bottom segment tremble. In response to this, Eggman lets out a puzzled "What?! What is happening down there?!" Implying a malfunction in his ability to control that part of the Egg Chimera.

Utilizing this distraction, Riku flies down while raising both of his claws into the air, using his sharp-tipped claws to attack the lance of the Egg Emperor with all of his might. The weapon is torn apart into multiple sections, leaving only the handle grasped in the hands of the Big Arms. The teenage Overlord continues to descend as the parts of the lance fall down around him and the malfunctioning bottom segment causes the shield to be swung his way.

Riku then rises up and uses a one-handed uppercut/claw slash on the handle on the back of the shield to rip the protection away from the bottom segment of the Egg Chimera right as Eggman regains control of his machine. The teenage Overlord flies back as Eggman clenches the Big Arms into fists and swings the right one at him.

The battlefield then starts to distort with static, causing Eggman to growl and comment "Gah! You little pest, how dare you damage my wonderful creation!" The doctor then slams down on a button in front of him to create another rift in space and time behind him that he flies back through with a single activation of his rockets.

When the Egg Chimera leaves the area, the distortions along the battlfield disappear. As Riku pursues Eggman through the rift he thinks to himself _"It's a good thing this machine appears to be a prototype…So long as there are flaws I can take advantage of, then it shouldn't be too problematic…" _

After being shunted through time and space, Riku finds himself floating in the depths of space above the planet with the Egg Chimera rapidly flying towards a field of meteors in the distance. The teenage Overlord wonders just when Eggman had sent the two of them now, something he receives the answer for as he glances behind himself and sees the mighty Death Egg suddenly explode, sending it's debris scattering throughout the depths of space as a crimson robot carrying the Master Emerald is pursued by a golden streak in the opposite direction of where the boy currently was.

Recognizing this place as being even further in the past than the last battlefield, Riku can only be thankful that Sonic's past battle with Eggman was happening far away, since a paradox would have occurred otherwise. Letting out a sigh of relief at this, the teenage Overlord then turns back around and flies after the Egg Chimera at high speed.

"You aren't going to escape from me Eggman!" Riku proclaims as he swings his arms out beside him and rapidly flaps his wings while using the very darkness of space around him to draw in energy and create pulsating spheres wrapped between his jagged claws.

The doctor flips the Egg Chimera around, crashing it harmlessly through every last meteor in his way as he declares arrogantly through the echoing speakers "Who said I was running?" He then grabs onto two of the larger meteors with the Big Arms and flings them at the boy as he weaves around the field of other meteors in pursuit of the titanic machine.

The collision of meteors as Riku avoids the ones thrown at him causes a couple to be dislodged from orbit and be sent flying towards the planet, where the atmosphere burns them up before they can pose a threat. Once close to the Egg Chimera, the teenage Overlord lands on one of the meteors and runs along it long enough to throw out two orbs of darkness at the artillery cannon as Eggman tries to posture it towards him.

Both impacts jolt the cannon back away from it's target, but while Riku was on the meteor Eggman used one of the Nega-Wisp Armor's tentacles to fire a laser of purple energy down at the boy. Riku leaps away from the meteor before the laser connects, but Eggman thinks ahead of the boy and uses the other tentacle to spit out a series of cubes across the meteor field that constantly reflects the laser around until it strikes Riku in the back just a moment before he lashes at the Egg Chimera.

The impact of the laser makes Riku pause and grimace in pain, which Eggman follows up on by using the Big Arms to throw a couple meteor right at him. The impact of the space rocks causes the boy to be launched away farther and farther with each hit as they shatter into dust. Eggman then flips the Egg Chimera back around and takes off through the meteor field, flipping the bottom segment around to keep grabbing onto any meteors he can for use as ammunition while locking the laser blasters at the top of his wings onto the boy.

As the teenage Overlord recovers from the meteors and brushes a bit of blood that dripped from the side of his mouth right off he watches as the curved orange lasers come his way, forcing him to jet forward while leaving behind a pitch black sonic boom before they all collide on his location, leaving behind an explosion for a few seconds as Riku zips around the meteor field in pursuit of the Egg Chimera once more.

The Egg Chimera fires off multiple missiles at the teenage Overlord from around the cockpit, all of them looping around the meteors perfectly as they home-in on their destination. The boy takes pre-emptive measures to ensure that he won't be hit by the ensuing explosions, such as thickening the aura around his body and firing off spheres of darkness in one hand and using the extended reach of his claws to throw meteors at the missiles with the other hand.

A widespread cache of explosions fills the meteor field, disintegrating most of them that weren't involved in the battle up until that point as Riku flies through the front edge of the explosions and finds himself that much closer to Eggman, though with a bit of smoke exuding from his body to indicate that the explosions had weakened him slightly. The Egg Chimera's missile supply is reloaded as Eggman turns his ship back around and swings his drill arm in front of his body, firing it out with a rocket propulsion at the tail end to make it able to speed at the boy without the pressure of space holding it back.

Riku lands atop the spinning drill and runs across it at high speeds, working against the momentum of the drill to avoid falling off until he reaches the end, at which point he leaps forward and flies straight down towards the bottom component of the Egg Chimera. Eggman puts the Nega-Wisp Armor tentacles to good use at this point, lashing them down to intercept the boy and grab clamp the mouths around his arms before he can strike the Big Arms.

At point blank, Eggman uses the Nega Hyper-go-on energy on the boy's arms in the form of two lasers, dealing a considerable amount of damage to his muscles after burning right through the dark aura. Riku grits through the pain of it all even as sweat starts to drip off from his forehead, and when Eggman is done weakening his arms he lifts the teenage Overlord up to the center of his chest and bends the artillery cannon his way with energy charged and ready to fire.

But by taking his darkness and pushing all of it towards his arms, Riku is able to create a burst of energy powerful enough to force the Nega-Wisp Armor's tentacles off of him, which allows him to then descend towards the bottom segment once more as the hazy blast of Nega Hyper-go-on energy breezes right by overhead.

The teenage Overlord goes straight for the Big Arms, using his extended reach to latch on the joints connecting them to the Egg Viper, and once he was between the two of them he clamps on the metal to break the wiring so Eggman can't attack with the arms before proceeding to pull back with all of his might to rip the arms right off from the rest of the titanic mech.

Riku flies back and casts the arms off into space nonchalantly, looking up at the cockpit of the Egg Chimera as the battlefield once again starts to distort around him. Eggman proclaims "Grrr…I should have known giving you this much freedom would be more detrimental for me! Fine, lets go fight in a more enclosed area again!"

Utilizing the time-space rift once more, Eggman flees the past to go to a place further ahead in time from now. Riku comments as the battlefield returns to it's normal luster "I guess he can't stay in the past without the relevant machine parts." As he thinks about this he notices that he has taken quite a hefty amount of damage so far just to take down two parts of the Egg Chimera. "Guess I might have to go a little further to win this battle…" As he makes this remark with a slight grin, he notices the rift starting to shrink in size, causing him to take charge through it before he finds himself trapped in the past. The battle had just begun against the Egg Chimera…

_Next Time: The Contradiction to History_


	21. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: Egg Chimera II: The Venomous Wyvern**

After leaping through yet another rift in time and space, Riku finds himself a little farther into the future than he was before, but still quite a good deal in the past. He landed atop a levitating square platform in a row of four in the center of a large darkened metal shaft, with each platform having rails on both sides of his body. There was another set of platforms off to the left of where Riku stood, but they were quickly destroyed as the Egg Chimera rose up from the dark depths below and brushed the platforms aside with his wings.

With Eggman's machine making it's gargantuan presence known, Riku turns towards it and spreads his arms out, summoning forth spheres of darkness between his aura-borne claws and creating just enough excess energy that black lightning sparks around atop the platforms. The teenage Overlord fires his spheres at the chest of the Egg Chimera, but Eggman counters the attack by using the lasers from the tips of his wings to lock-on to the specific energy signature and counter them seconds before they impact.

He then uses another burst of lasers to home-in on the boy in the center of the four platforms, forcing him to leap to the left and roll along the ground to dodge the explosion radius of the lasers, and once he lifts himself up he skids a couple feet and ends near the edge of the platforms. Eggman then rises up and detaches the disk from the sides of the Egg Viper tail of his combined mechanoid and put them on top of each other at the opposite end of the platforms.

After having them spin around for a few seconds to charge-up their rotation Eggman launches them along the platforms at the boy at the same time. Riku leaps up a mere second before they ram into him, landing on top of the discs and quickly slamming his claws into the top of them so he can keep himself from getting dizzy and losing his balances as he spins around atop the discs. But at the same time Riku has made himself a sitting duck by allowing Eggman to lock-on to the top of the discs and ready another attack.

Eggman swings the Egg Chimera's drill towards the boy and makes it spin around fast enough that it could drill through a mountain in a matter of seconds. Riku notices and hears the actions of the drill in front of him and realizes that taking a drill head-on would turn him into paste even with his current level of strength. Thus, Riku decided to be a little innovative with his predicament by forming talons that pierce into the metal tops of the discs and allow him to stand up and face the drill in a different manner than he would have been able to before.

The teenage Overlord holds his hands out, thickening the aura of the darkness that formed his claws and waiting for just the right moment to slam his claws in the sides of the drill as it is thrust his way. The moment the drill and claws collide, the discs are forcibly stopped while hundreds of sparks fly off between the drill and the tips of the claws. During this clash Riku grits his teeth and finds himself a little blinded by the sparks as they impact with his aura directly in front of his eyes while he simultaneously uses all of his lower body strength to prevent the discs from rotating again.

The moment he allows he discs to budge even once is the moment he loses the battle against the drill. The plan here was to stop the weapon's mass rotation and push it back, causing a recoil effect that will stun the Egg Chimera long enough for Riku to strike at the machine nice and hard. Even with the amount of darkness in his claws, the teenage Overlord was having difficulty slowing the drill down. In fact, it was clear that Eggman was trying to keep the rotation up to ensure that his plan would fail.

With this idea failing with each passing second, Riku decides to go for another course of action, which he utilizes by pushing the drill forward, working against Eggman's attempt to force it against his body. By pushing the drill towards the direction of the robot, the teenage Overlord hears a light crunch coming from the joints, signifying that pressure was being applied to the machinery.

Eggman naturally didn't approve of this event and quickly pulled back on the drill to avoid losing yet another weapon to the boy's efforts. Riku took in some deep breaths as he was given a little freedom from the Egg Chimera's assault, commenting in his mind _"Should have just leaped off the discs…" _

As he notes this matter, Riku leaps off and flaps his demonic wings to keep away from the discs as Eggman brings them back to the sides of the Egg Viper tail. The teenage Overlord then smirks and notes that his power has weakened out of a combination of a drop in aggression along with the amount of damage he has taken throughout the battle. _"I might need to change forms again soon…I think I can take care of the Egg Viper part of this machine before I have to do that though…" _Riku notes.

Eggman continues his assault against the boy by raising the artillery cannon and firing a hazy blast of Nega Hyper-go-on energy at him. Riku gets back into the swing of battle and slashes at the orb with his right claw to tear it apart, mocking the doctor for his attack with a quick remark of "You know Eggman, that hasn't worked on me at all. You might want to try something different with that cannon of yours."

The doctor doesn't take that remark well, as he jabs the artillery cannon at the boy while swinging the rest of the Egg Chimera to the side, and after a few seconds of charging energy in all four barrels Eggman fires out four thick streams of violet Nega Hyper-go-on energy while rotating the cannon around to mix the streams in a swirling vortex. Riku glides along to the right to avoid the attack while it burns away at the walls surrounding the shaft. The teenage Overlord then takes advantage of Eggman's angered attack by charging straight at the tail, flying right underneath he beams as he swings his right claw back and extended the fingers outward to increase the amount of damage he will do.

But even with anger guiding his actions, Eggman knew which part of the Egg Chimera would need to be protected while he was performing his assault, and he quickly swung the very end of his tail up to fire a swift piercing shot of Hyper-go-on energy at the boy. The laser was miniscule, and thus Riku failed to notice the attack as it punctured through his right shoulder. Though the teenage Overlord endured a hefty amount of pain from this attack, he pushed onward towards the Egg Viper tail with his claw outstretched.

In fact, Eggman might have made a miscalculation in attacking that part of Riku's body, since the pain only reignited the aggression that he had lost earlier. With his power mostly regained, the teenage Overlord goes for the tail and uses his thickened claw to slash right at the head of the Egg Viper, cutting three large gash marks into the metallic underside but failing to reach the wiring buried behind it.

Riku grits his teeth upon noticing this miss due to the lack of static flowing through his aura and makes a quick remark of _"Darn it!" _in his head as he flies away from the Egg Viper and loops around the edge of the room until he ends right in front of the glowing violet scar left by the artillery cannon, but before he strikes at the Egg Chimera again the machine uses it's tentacles to fire a multitude of spiky Nega Hyper-go-on balls at the boy.

The teenage Overlord decides to take a risk by throwing his left claw out to grab onto one of the spiky balls, and with the protection of his aura preventing him from being punctured by the spike Riku pulls his claw back in and quickly flies down to avoid the remainder of the spike balls. With the Egg Viper vulnerable again, the teenage Overlord flies straight at it with a plan in mind.

Keeping the spike ball protected by wrapping it in a double-layered sphere of darkness, Riku decides to force his right arm to move again in spite of the pain that flares through his shoulder so he can tear apart the Egg Viper's metallic surface even further.

Eggman naturally swings the tentacles downward, using float-y thrusts of the heads to launch down Nega Hyper-go-on lasers one after the other, forcing the teenage Overlord to weave back and forth through the shaft as he heads towards the Egg Viper tail. Coating the right claw in a thicker aura, Riku swoops in a downward arc towards the underside of the tail towards the glowing gashes he left behind in the metal, and with another slash of his claw he breaks further into the Egg Viper's surface, this time around reaching into the wiring buried underneath.

Riku quickly alternates to his left hand while grimacing at the jolt of pain coming from his right shoulder, throwing the spike ball wrapped in darkness into the wiring and releasing the veil to make the spiky ball explode within the innards of the Egg Viper. The explosion was bigger than the teenage Overlord expected, causing him to be launched back by the burst of Nega Hyper-go-on energy as a chain reaction is activated within the Egg Viper.

Eggman growls in surprise as a series of explosions occur within the Egg Viper, launching multiple parts across the shaft with every passing second until the doctor is forced to detach the tail before the explosions spread across the rest of the Egg Chimera. The Egg Viper drops down the shaft, watched by Riku's eyes until the machine is annihilated for good in one massive fiery explosion that sets the darkness in the shaft aglow with red and yellow light.

The battlefield distorts like usual afterwards, and after Eggman proclaims while swinging his wings outward alongside his drill "You little winged pest, I will finish you off in the next time period!" The doctor then summons a time rift and drags the Egg Chimera through it. Riku clasps his right shoulder with his left hand and notices that his aura of darkness was starting to fade away. He had taken far too much damage to take down just the bottom segment of this mighty machine, leading him to believe Eggman's claim that Sonic would have lost to his ultimate weapon.

Even with the pain in his shoulder, Riku flies through the time rift to follow Eggman to the next era in time he wanted to fight in. This time around once he goes through the rift the boy finds himself landing atop another set of platforms similar to the ones he started on in the last time period, only these had a more defined appearance to them with cybernetic edgings and see-through centerpieces. The platforms were assembled in a large nine-square spread, and there was a heavy wind draft coming at him from behind.

Looking up, Riku sees the Egg Chimera descend from close to the underside of the large crimson battleship known as the Egg Carrier, which was burning apart at the back while debris fall down around his machine. The aura surrounding the Egg Chimera breaks apart any debris that falls on top of him, ensuring a lack of damage as it prepared for the next phase of battle.

But just like he was feeling in the museum on the Egg Continent, Riku curiously wondered how Eggman could have traveled to this particular point in time, considering the events that led to this point were supposedly erased from history. As his aura of darkness fades away while he keeps his hand placed on his pained right shoulder, the teenage Overlord decides to take advantage of his current state of weakness to ask Eggman some questions, playing on the doctor's arrogance to ensure that he would get his answers.

"E-Eggman…How could you possibly remember this time period? I know what happened here, and there's no way you'd know…" Riku says as the wind brushes against his body.

Eggman lowers his machine to look down upon the boy clearly, saying with a sly smirk on his face from the safety of his cockpit "I'd think it would be obvious if you know as much as you claim you do."

The doctor swings his right arm out as he goes on to explain "When time reset to compensate for the erasure of Solaris' existence, those close to the epicenter of the reset retained a slight fragment of their memories from the original time period, though for some the events were buried further into their subconscious than others. For one of high intelligence such as myself, it was easy to remember everything with the help of a machine, and at the same time recall my plans for the Egg Wyvern so I could utilize part of its designs in the creation of the Egg Chimera."

"The original time period still stopped existing, so how could you travel to it?!" Riku asks, to which Eggman responds simply with "Who said it stopped existing? All it did was end at a specific point because Solaris had erased our world forever. The events that occurred before that point still existed, meaning with the help of the Time Eater I could travel to it whenever I want."

This answer made Riku tilt his head and remark in a puzzled tone "The T-Time Eater? Wait, are you insinuating that…" Before he finishes his sentence, two small rifts open up in time and space, and pushing through them are two mechanically golden claws covered in a black and dark purple smoky mist that let out a clockwork ticking noise as it emerges.

Eggman then goes on to mention as the large claws float on both sides of his Egg Chimera "You think I would create this conglomerate machine without including one of my finest creations of all time?! Even after both Sonics defeated me and my past self, I was able to go back to the white void of time and salvage most of the Time Eater's parts so I could integrate it perfectly into the Egg Chimera. And now, I will show you exactly what I'm capable of doing with it!"

The doctor lifts the Egg Chimera higher into the air and throws the Time Eater's claws at the platforms Riku stands on, utilizing a combination of the energy exuding around the claws and the Hyper-go-on mix to summon a large dome of orange, purple and black misty fog around the teenage Overlord, trapping him inside as Eggman taunts from the outer part of the dome "Lets see how you fight when you can't even see your opponent!"

Sure enough, the field of energy was thick enough that Riku couldn't see even a fragment of the Egg Chimera anymore, and because of the nature of the energy source the boy couldn't even sense it's position. Knowing all too well that Eggman was probably moments away from attacking, the teenage Overlord lifted his right hand out in front of his body and stood tall and proud, summoning forth his sword as he closed his eyelids and thought _"I haven't used this since I unlocked it…But I haven't forgotten my new line of thinking, and I still am staying true to it…"_

Both white and black on the helix-shaped blade glow as Riku focuses on both the Light and Darkness within him, combining them together as his body is wrapped in a shell of both elements that swirls together into a neutral feeling vortex that scatters apart mere seconds after it appears. The katana from his Light-form that Riku grips is not the only change to his appearance as the energy vanishes. He now wears a perfectly fitting sleek black metallic armor that had the top halves of dragon's skulls attached and extended out past the width of his shoulders, while along his arms were pulled back angelic feathers that ended before his wrists, which were surrounded by a shining golden and silver halo on his right and left respectively.

Around his belt was an ancient runic belt covered in monochrome gemstones with two sheathes, one for his katana and another for a thick, curved dagger. On Riku's back were two sets of wings, one of angelic nature and another of demonic intent. His eyes had changed, with the left one now pure white and the other having a dark yellow tint.

In this form, Riku felt a combination of calmness and melancholy and his wounds had healed up. The teenage Overlord immediately turns to the right and notices a rift opening up as the drill arm thrusts itself through to try and drill the boy apart. Riku takes his katana and switches it into the grasp of his other arm with a gentle flow of the wrists, positioning his now freed right hand out so the drill impacts with the center of his palm, which doesn't even have a hint of aura protecting it as it grinds rapidly against the skin.

The teenage Overlord fires off a shockwave of both light and darkness from the palm of his hand that forces the drill back through the rift with ease, causing Eggman to comment in a puzzled murmur "W-What?" This remark confirmed for Riku that the doctor also had no vision of what was going on inside the dome, meaning that for the next few moments, he could see if there was anything else Eggman had in his arsenal before he cut through the dome to deal with the Egg Chimera for good.

Next up, Eggman used his titanic mech to send forth a barrage of lasers right through the dome, each one emerging from the tips of his wings. The laser burn tiny holes through the energy and impact with the platforms around Riku's body, creating tiny explosions that do little more than make the boy glare at them as they miss completely.

Standing in place, the teenage Overlord take his katana as the holes in the dome are filled with spiked missiles launched from the Egg Chimera's upper torso and cuts two of them down in two calm yet swiftly performed attacks. The explosions that ensue behind him as the broken missiles land blow his wings in front of him, but simultaneously dismantle the platforms surrounding him.

As Riku is left with only one spot to stand on, he looks towards the holes in front of him and watches as Eggman thrusts both of the Nega-Wisp Armor's tentacles right through them, opening the mouths to target the teenage Overlord on the remaining platform. "Eat this you little gnat!" Eggman declares as two lasers of raw Nega Hyper-go-on energy pulsate through the mouths of the tentacles and head straight for the boy.

From the teenage Overlord's perspective, the lasers moved rather slowly, allowing him plenty of time to take out his dagger and cross both weapon in front of his body, where he creates a emblem of light and darkness to not only protect himself, but to reflect the lasers back at the tentacles with enough pushback to force both limbs to retract through the dome in pain.

With the holes now wide-open, Riku comments to himself _"I guess I shouldn't expect anything spectacular from this junk pile…" _After sheathing his dagger the teenage Overlord uses a swift cut of his katana to slash through the dome from afar, surprising Eggman as the energy composing the dome breaks apart into nothing and allows him to see the new form the boy had taken.

"Wh-What? What is this supposed to be?" Eggman comments as the teenage Overlord flies straight at the Egg Chimera in a blur of white and black flames, using two swift slashes of his swords to cut down the Egg Wyvern's wings with relative ease before retreating in front of the main robot and watching as Eggman is forced to use rocket boosters at the bottom of the titanic machine to keep himself afloat.

The battlefield begins to distort, and as Eggman slams his fists down on both sides of his pod he looks up at the boy and proclaims "You've got to be kidding me! You still have this much power left in you?!"

Riku doesn't respond to Eggman's comments, leading the doctor to growl furiously at this development as he slams opens a rift in time and space with a backhanded punch from one of the Time Eater's claws and slips through it. The teenage Overlord glares at the rift and says quietly "Where will you go now Eggman…" before he flies through the portal in pursuit of the Egg Chimera.

_Next Time: A Slow Battle_


	22. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21: Egg Chimera III: Desperation Dragoon**

Leaping out of the rift in time and space once more, Riku finds himself in a long winding tunnel filled with glass windows and many still working machines that pumped lava through tubes in this facility. Glancing quickly to the left as he skids along the floor of the crimson metal tunnel, the teenage Overlord notices a large-scale amusement park with Eggman's face on the entrance in the distance. Sheathing his katana for the moment as he realizes that the Egg Chimera was nowhere in sight, Riku comments _"So now I'm in Eggmanland…Is this in the past, or the present?" _

Suddenly, the area distorts around the teenage Overlord's body in a manner different from usual. The entire atmosphere becomes wavy and barely visible, leaving Riku puzzled for quite a few seconds before the effect ends and Eggman finally emerges above him in a second rift. The Egg Chimera had now changed slightly, with pure black gears extending from the back of the machine where the Egg Wyvern's left wing once was.

The Egg Chimera now looked more like the Time Eater, something that was especially evident with the two claws still floating out on both sides of the titanic machine. Eggman perfectly spun the Egg Chimera around to face the teenage Overlord, and after flipping the glass dome of his pod away he stood up and swung his arms out at the boy, clenching one hand into a fist and exclaiming "Your new form may be impressive, but I will not falter while I still have this machine!"

Riku calmly moves his right hand towards his katana's handle, pulling it out with nary a comment from his mind as he leaps towards the Egg Chimera to take it down for good. But Eggman quickly reacts to his attack by swinging the right hand of the Time Eater at the boy, backhanding him away from the main body and sending him fly a good few feet away before he recovers with a single flap of both sets of wings. The teenage Overlord glares at the robot, stating to himself quietly "Huh? How did he react to my movements…"

Eggman seals himself back in his pod and activates the boosters of his Egg Chimera to start flying backwards through this elongated tunnel surrounding Eggmanland while also retracting the claw of the Time Eater. The teenage Overlord wastes little time in flying after the machine, but much to his surprise he is only able to keep pace with the Egg Chimera despite how much slower it's momentum was as it was going backwards.

Riku knew he was going at full speed, meaning that Eggman had just pulled a trick on him that made him much, much slower. To test just what the doctor had done to him, the teenage Overlord swings his katana out after coating it with light to send a crescent projectile of energy at the center of the machine. The Egg Chimera reacts with the same speed that it did before, only this time one of the Nega-Wisps tentacles lashes out and chomps down on the light energy, breaking it apart before it could do any lasting damage.

"_So it's not just my body that's slower…My attacks are as well…" _Riku notes as he sheathes his sword for the time being and adds on to his previous thought with _"Or maybe the Egg Chimera's speed has increased? There's only one way to test this…" _

The teenage Overlord has noted the speed of the Egg Chimera during the battles so far. Specifically relying on his information regarding the backwards speed, Riku pays very close attention the machine as he continues to fly towards it, and with a thrust of his left hand the teenage Overlord fires off a beam of light in what would be an instance for him. The Egg Chimera swings to the left to dodge the attack, something which should have been impossible even if it was faster than it was before.

This confirms Riku's theory that his speed had been vastly lowered, and with the reveal that the Time Eater was a part of the Egg Chimera's entire being the teenage Overlord thinks _"So he used time-space manipulation to slow me down…Well-played Eggman." _

As Riku lowers his eyebrows out of annoyance towards this revelation, Eggman cracks a slight smile. The teenage Overlord then comments _"I think I hate time-space manipulation now…" _

The teenage Overlord goes for the ground to dodge the swing of the Egg Chimera's drill, landing down just before the bottom of the drill brushes his wings as he sheathes his katana and pulls out his dagger. He throws the dagger at the main body, and decides to trick Eggman by creating a darkness rift in front of the path of his dagger before the doctor can deflect it with one laser.

While the dagger was gone Riku swung his freed up right hand to launch a couple darkness spheres at the cockpit of the machine, which Eggman deals with by doing absolutely nothing as the barrier takes them with ease. But the impact creates smoke, allowing the teenage Overlord to finish guiding his dagger through the realm of darkness with his mind and letting it emerge from behind Eggman's pod.

The dagger flies for the back of the pod and impales into the little gap around the neck. Riku ignites the dagger with hard black flames to dig it deeper into the machine. The teenage Overlord tries to force Eggman's pod away from the main machine in order to prevent him from controlling time and space anymore, but the doctor received a fair warning on his console and quickly swung one of the Nega-Wisp Armor tentacles up to clamp the handle of the dagger and pull it right out.

After lifting the flaming dagger up, the tentacle flings it back towards it's owner. Riku lifts his hand up to drag it back to him while he continues to run along the ground while Eggman swings his artillery cannon forward to launch a bombardment of Nega Hyper-go-on energy spheres at him. Once the teenage Overlord takes his dagger back he swings it out once to take out a couple spheres while simultaneously opening another rift to take care of the rest of the spheres.

While the rift was dealing with the onslaught of spheres, Riku stood in place and sheathed his dagger while saying to the black dragon Takashi _"You aren't affected by the time spell…You think you can absorb some of this energy and launch it back through another rift?" _

"_Already ahead of you there." _Takashi replies, which allows Riku to shut the rift in front of him and sprint forward underneath the remainder of the attacks as the Egg Chimera continues to move back through the tunnel. "Come on now boy, surely you are faster than this? Or maybe not…Maybe you're too slow!" Eggman taunts the boy arrogantly from the safety of his cockpit.

Riku responds to this mockery attempted by mentioning jokingly "Geez, you were saving that one for Sonic, weren't you?" To which Eggman says in turn "Yes, just another glorious moment ruined by your presence!"

After mentioning this the doctor fires off multiple spiky missiles from around the cockpit while simultaneously using the Nega-Wisp Armors tentacles to spread a ton of spiky balls along the ground, forcing Riku to take to the air again to avoid ruining into them. When the missiles home in on his body, the teenage Overlord swings his wings forward to push himself back, saying to the black dragon through his mind _"Lets do this!" _

Pulling out his dagger and swinging hard against the air to creating a gigantic gash of darkness, Riku watches as a massive black, red and purple fireball is launched out at high speeds and burns through the missiles, filling the air with many explosions before it reaches the Egg Chimera seconds after Eggman notices it and reacts with utter shock on his face.

The fireball collides, causing the entire machine to recoil back as the fireball bursts and spreads darkness and Nega Hyper-go-on energy across the entire machine, disrupting the aura surrounding the machine and forcing Eggman to exclaim "No! What did you do to my beautiful machine?!"

As the rift in front of him seals up, Riku sheathes his dagger and thanks his draconic ally with a simple _"Good work Takashi, I should be able to handle this from here." _

The black dragon replies with _"You're doing well. His mobile junk pile shouldn't last much longer." _His companion, the white dragon Sodenko, says as a companion to this comment _"Of course, if we were the Lord of Chaos, this fool would have been done with in an instant."_

"_I'm not freeing you Sodenko, and I'm definitely not dealing with your antics right now." _Riku bluntly replies to the white dragon while drawing out his katana for the next phase of battle.

As Eggman rapidly swings the limbs of his machine around to put out the fires that had scorched most of the metal coat off of the main body, he exclaims in disbelief "You still have more powers at your disposal?! Just who are you?!"

The teenage Overlord jabs the tip of his katana into the air and proclaims humbly "My name is Riku, what you see is all that I am!"

"What I see is a pest!" Eggman angrily proclaims in response to Riku's remark, and after slamming both of his fists hard against the console he swings his left hand out while stating "A pest that I will squish into dust! All weapons, open fire!"

All arms of the Egg Chimera lift up and take aim at the boy as he floats in mid-air. The drill fires off first, followed by the artillery cannon firing off a rapid stream of orbs and the tentacles of the Nega-Wisp Armor flailing about firing lasers in multiple directions, and finally the spiked missiles around the cockpit launch off and quickly home-in on the boy.

Riku flies up to dodge the drill, recognizing the timing necessary to avoid it while his speed is slowed. He then holds his katana in front of him and calmly summons forth a shield of light around his body to block most of the Hyper-go-on energy streams from the artillery cannon, but he then replaces the shield with a reflective barrier to turn the energy against each other, allowing him to slip off to the right.

The lasers from the tentacles are dodged by a combination of quickly timed swerves along with swings of his katana to briefly deflect the energy, and after going far enough to the right to get out of the laser's range Riku lands against the wall and starts to run along it to catch up to the Egg Chimera while remembering that the missiles were still a threat.

The barrage of approximately thirty missiles is noticed by the boy, with all of them coming at him in such a way that at his speed he wouldn't be able to leap off the wall in any directions to escape. So instead Riku goes for his dagger and slashes at the air in front of him to create a rift big enough for his body that he leaps into with a forward tumble, allowing the missiles to crash against the wall and completely annihilate it a singular explosions.

While in the realm of darkness, the teenage Overlord feels as though his speed had gone back to normal, which he grins at as he leaps a great distance to the left and proceeds to hold his katana out beside his right side, igniting the very tip with pure light so he can cut a thin window through the darkness that allows him to see the Egg Chimera as he runs through the realm to catch up with the machine.

Outside, Eggman is furiously pounding at the console of his machine, firing off all of his weapons against all of the walls in the tunnel and blowing everything around him to smithereens in his rage as he exclaims "Where are you? WHERE ARE YOU?!"

The explosions weren't helping Riku in his attempt to attack the Egg Chimera, but the boy was willing to be patient for as long as it would take for him to strike. The teenage Overlord receives a comment from the black dragon, who points out _"My fireball greatly weakened the center of that machine. Strike there decisively Riku and put and end to this man's plans for good."_

The teenage Overlord nods as he notices that he was now lined up with the side of the Egg Chimera's body, and after going just a little bit further Riku leaps into the air and spins around, using his dagger to cut an exit out of the realm of darkness that's large enough for him to leap through as he lands on the ground.

Folding his wings behind his back while crossing his arms in an X-Shape in front of his body so his weapons are pointed upward, at which point he leaps straight through the gash and flies at high-speeds towards the center of the Egg Chimera's body.

As Eggman notices Riku's presence, it was already far too late for him to react. The boy swings his sword and dagger out as he crosses in front of the Egg Chimera's center, both blades cleaving right through the weakened machine with solid streams of light and darkness going through the body in an X- shaped formation.

The severity of the damage dealt to the main body of the Egg Chimera causes the entire machine to swiftly be covered in a series of explosions that starts from the center and spreads across in all directions. The first explosion pushes the Nega-Wisp Armor onto the ground, while one of the final ones launches Eggman's pod right out of the cockpit, leading to the glass dome crashing against the ceiling and cracking slightly.

The time-space manipulation comes to an end, returning Riku to his normal speed as the Egg Chimera is engulfed in one final fiery explosions that leaves nothing of the Egg Dragoon behind in it's wake. The teenage Overlord calmly stands near the edge of the explosion while sheathing his weapons one after the other, and as the flames touch his wings he turns around and watches as the explosion settles and only a cloud of raw smoke remains in place.

Riku looks up and notices that Eggman's pod has already started to fall from the ceiling, and as it descends into the cloud of smoke the boy prepares to run forward to catch the pod before the doctor can escape. The battlefield begins to distort as without warning the teenage Overlord is smacked away from the fading cloud by the backside of one of the Time Eater's golden metallic claws.

As the teenage Overlord crashes against the nearby wall, the smoke fades away, revealing the Time Eater in all of it's reborn glory. This four-armed monstrosity was composed of multiple golden gears and spikes filled with a surging dark-purple energy. The face of the monstrous machine was filled with hazy blue flames in the eyes and mouth, and had a menacing appearance to it thanks to that along with the gruesome dark-violet smog surrounding it's main body and limbs.

Eggman could be seen in the uppermost pod, perfectly connected to this machine of his as evidenced by the fact that he retracted the upper right claw and used the lower right one to reach for the Nega-Wisp Armor and quickly attach it to the back of the Time Eater. As Riku peels himself away from the wall, he looks up at the Time Eater and asks "Now where did this come from?"

The doctor responds with a simple "That's one of the benefits of a time-space manipulator. You can easily stuff a giant machine inside of the core of another!"

"This is pointless and you know it Eggman." Riku points out the futility of the doctor's actions here as the area distorts even further, leaving barely anything recognizable in the area.

"You think I am just going to surrender?! I won't stop until I have destroyed you and that pesky blue hedgehog for good! That will be a victory greater than any other!" Eggman exclaims as he creates a rift in time and space for him to escape through.

But before he goes, Riku points out "You're insane if you think anything is ever going to change Eggman! It doesn't matter who you face, you will always be stopped! Just surrender now and you can go back to whatever facilities you have to come up with another failure of a plan!"

Eggman grins in his machine, whether born of arrogance or insanity, and says in a sly tone of voice "How can you be so confident when you haven't stopped my plans fully?" This remark makes Riku take pause and think _"What? How can he still have something up his sleeve?" _The doctor then takes the Time Eater through the rift behind him while the teenage Overlord keeps this question on his mind as he leaps after him…

_Next Time: Eggman's Defiance_


End file.
